Song of Sun, Whisper of Bone
by NetRaptor
Summary: When Jayesh goes to the Praxic Order to train as a Sunsinger, he's inadvertantly thrust into the intrigue surrounding Gambit, an unsanctioned, dangerous game. As he struggles to regain his Light, he is drawn ever deeper into the conflicts between his teammates, dealing with Black Armory forges being used to craft Weapons of Sorrow, and the lurking menace of Shin Malphur.
1. Chapter 1

Cidrex owned by LordShaxxion, used with permission

Liran owned by fireteam-dumb_luck, used with permission

* * *

"You're only down to stage three psychic damage, Jayesh," Ikora said.

She looked up from her tablet at the young Guardian before her. He was a human with brown skin and dark hair, and a glint of blue Light in his eyes. He wore a white warlock robe that had seen better days. One hand fiddled nervously with the buckle on the sash.

"I'm doing better," he insisted, giving her an earnest look. "I need to train. Please, Ikora."

Ikora sighed deeply and studied her tablet again. "Your hallucinations have subsided, that's good. The nightmares haven't, which isn't good. You've lost your ability to communicate with the Traveler, and you're no longer a Dawnblade." She looked up and raised her eyebrows.

Jayesh pressed a fist to his heart. "I'm a Sunsinger now. But I need to train so I can learn my powers."

Ikora waited, gazing at him.

Jayesh crumpled and hung his head. "I can't speak to the Traveler, no. And the nightmares ... they're not so bad. My ghost keeps them down." He held out a hand and summoned his ghost in a flash of blue particles. Phoenix appeared in a fiery red and yellow shell.

Ikora studied them both. The ghost's eye flickered very slightly, a sign of impending exhaustion. And Jayesh looked haggard, with dark circles under his eyes.

"Sunsinger training requires intense focus," Ikora said. "And I don't think either of you are ready for it. Stage three is nothing to shrug off, Jayesh. I know it's better than stage five, but most Guardians are still on medical leave at stage three."

"You don't understand," Jayesh said in a low voice. "My Light - my Dawnblade - is gone, Ikora. It's part of who I am. I have to regain my solar Light, even if I have to retrain as a Sunsinger. Otherwise I'll never recover."

"You could go arc or void," Ikora suggested.

Jayesh shook his head. "I'm a healer."

Three simple words, so rare among the Guardians of the Vanguard. Ikora studied her tablet to avoid looking at the swiftly-fading scars across his eyes, where a monster in the Ascendant Realm had taken his sight. Jayesh was one of her favorites among the young warlocks, and he had been through such horrendous things, trying to save people. And now, all he wanted was to regain his Light. It was too easy to remember her own long night, with no hope of ever regaining her own Light.

"All right," she said at last. "I'll put you down for training. But only two days a week. The rest of the time, I want you to rest. Understand?"

Jayesh beamed like she had handed him the Traveler, itself. "Yes, ma'am! Thank you!"

"Now, about that," Ikora went on. "There are few true Sunsingers left. After the Red War, the quality of the Light changed, and the Dawnblades emerged. The ones still knowledgeable about Sunsingers work among the Praxic Order, and they are harsh to newcomers. They will train you, but they will also tax you. Do you understand?"

Jayesh nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I've worked with some Praxic Order warlocks before. They're ... fierce."

Ikora nodded. "Two days a week. No more, no matter what they say."

"Two days," he agreed.

After she dismissed him, Ikora stood at the Tower railing for some time in silence.

Her ghost materialized beside her and studied the Cityscape, too. "They'll break him."

"Not at two days a week," Ikora whispered. "Surely not."

"You know what Aunor Mahal is like," Ophiuchus said. "You know what's been going on with Gambit. Jayesh has been in the Dreaming City. He has no idea."

Ikora shut her eyes and inhaled. "Do I deny him his Light?"

Ophiuchus didn't respond for a moment, but his shell jerked back and forth. "He and his ghost are unwell."

"I know. We'll monitor them closely. If they show signs of relapse, I'll end the training."

Ophiuchus nodded, and she sensed his disapproval. But that was normal. Her ghost disapproved of most things these days.

* * *

Jayesh loitered outside the Praxic Order headquarters, building up the nerve to enter. It had once been a guard tower far down the wall of the Last City. Now it was the offices of the solar warlocks most concerned with keeping weapons of Darkness out of the hands of Guardians. Yellow and black banners fluttered in the breeze on either side of the door, marked with the triple triangles of the order.

"They won't bite you," said his ghost, Phoenix. "I mean, I hope not."

"These people scare me," Jayesh muttered, straightening his robe and combing a hand through his hair. "I mean, did you hear about that block they burned down to kill a couple Shadows of Yor?"

"Yes," Phoenix said. "You've been Solar since I resurrected you. I didn't think fire scared me ... until I watched videos of Praxic warlocks in action."

Jayesh squared his shoulders. "I have to do this. My Light still isn't right."

Phoenix gave him a sideways look. Jayesh wouldn't say it, but his inability to communicate with the Traveler troubled him worse than his fitful Solar Light. A bad encounter with the Ahamkara Riven had cost him his power and a good deal of his sanity. Although a month of rest at home had helped, Jayesh still wasn't well. His focus on regaining his Light approached mania, and Phoenix simply came along for the ride.

Jayesh turned the doorknob and entered the office.

His first impression was of yellow and black. The walls were hung with Praxic Order banners, the desks were draped in them, and more banners stretched across the ceiling. Several warlocks worked at the desks, crammed together in the narrow room. Filing cabinets lurked behind the wall hangings. Ghosts zipped here and there, appearing and disappearing, carrying news and information to their Guardians.

As Jayesh entered, all activity halted. Every warlock and ghost turned to stare at him.

He gulped. "Guardian Jayesh, come for training. Please." His words sounded so weak.

One of the warlocks rose from her seat and walked up to him. She was a dark-complexioned human, like himself, with a glint of orange in her eyes, as if her fire threatened to break loose at any second. She studied him a moment, then glanced at her tablet. "Jayesh. Yes. Rey sent me your report." She jerked her head. "This way."

Jayesh followed her through the room and through a door behind a tapestry. Inside was another office, this with only one desk, every pencil and paper severely organized. The books on a nearby shelf were arranged by size. There wasn't a speck of dust anywhere, and no chairs for guests.

The warlock took the only chair, putting the width of the desk between them. "I am Aunor Mahal," she said, pressing her fingertips together. "Why have you switched disciplines so suddenly?"

Jayesh hadn't yet filed his report on his activities in the Dreaming City. Medical had told him not to bother until his psychic damage dropped below stage two, or it would be thrown out as unreliable. Aside from Ikora, whom he had told personally, nobody knew why he had come home Lightless and mentally ill.

"My Light was damaged in the Dreaming City," Jayesh said, thankful this was one of his lucid days. "I lost the ability to wield the Dawnblade. I need to train as a Sunsinger."

"Uh-huh," Aunor said, studying him without blinking. "Guardians don't just lose their Light. What Darkness were you involved with?"

This was the focus of the Praxic order, after all. Jayesh replied, "I was sent to use a Blessing of Light to restore a Taken."

"Did you succeed?"

"Yes."

"Was it the Taken that damaged your Light?"

He hesitated. "Not that one. But ... a different one."

Aunor waited in silence, staring at him across her steepled fingers.

"Riven," Jayesh confessed. "In the Ascendant Realm."

Only Aunor's lips moved. "Ikora's message says that you have stage three psychic damage, and that you're only to train two days a week."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I don't have time to train a sick Guardian," Aunor snapped. "You are unfit for the Praxic Order. I have my hands full with Gambit."

"Please," Jayesh said, swaying forward. "I need my Light back so I can recover. Please."

Aunor studied him in silence for a moment. Then she summoned her ghost, in a yellow and black shell. "Send for Cal."

The ghost vanished. A moment later, the door opened, and a giant of a man stepped inside, ducking his head to avoid the doorframe. Jayesh backed into a corner to give him room to enter. Cal's muscular arms were as big around as Jayesh's legs, and his robe stretched across his broad shoulders. He was human, too. The ghost at his shoulder seemed comically small.

"Yes, Ms. Mahal?" he said, bowing a little.

She flicked a hand at Jayesh. "New supplicant, needs training, two days a week. I'm busy. You handle it."

Cal turned to look down at Jayesh. He had vivid blue eyes and a crooked nose, and his mouth seemed set in an easy smile. He had long blond hair in a braid down his back.

"Hey there, Jayesh." He held out a hand. Jayesh's hand disappeared into it as they shook. "Haven't seen you since the plague."

"Been busy." Jayesh didn't add that Cal's massive size and formidable power had intimidated him then, and continued to do so.

Cal ducked out the door. "Come on, then. Let's see what you can do."

Jayesh followed him out of the guard tower and some distance along the top of the wall. Once they were far from anything that might catch fire, Cal turned to face him. "You were one of the top healers during the plague winter, Jayesh. Why do you need training?"

Jayesh leaned against the wall's parapet. "I was injured in the Dreaming City. I lost my Light. Dawnblade. Healing. Everything. My ghost ... do you know what an intercession is?"

Cal's bright blue gaze fixed on him. "I've read about it. It's rare. Not all ghosts can do it."

Jayesh nodded. "My ghost interceded for me to the Traveler. It sort of ... taught me about being a Sunsinger. But I don't know how to use it. And my Light won't cooperate."

Cal was far more easy-going than Aunor. He pondered this, his brain much quicker than his huge frame suggested. "Well then. Can you summon a grenade?"

Jayesh held out a hand and built the beginnings of an explosive Light ball. But after a moment it fizzled and went out.

"Huh," Cal grunted. "Any fire at all?"

Jayesh held up both hands and summoned feeble flames that went out in the wind.

Cal sat on the parapet across from Jayesh and looked at him a moment. Then he gazed across the Last City to the Traveler in the distance, its cracked globe filling the sky. "Tell you what," he said finally. "I'm due to run patrol in the EDZ tomorrow. Come with me and we'll practice out there."

Jayesh straightened. "You think you can help?"

Cal shrugged. "Help you help yourself, maybe. I need to read up on this. I saw you stack rifts in the hospitals. And now you can't even call fire? Yeah, I need to do research."

Jayesh glanced at Cal's gigantic frame and imagined him wedged between the narrow shelves in the Archives. "Thanks," he said faintly.

Cal shook a finger at him. "And stay out of Gambit."

Jayesh gave him a blank look. "What's Gambit?"

Cal peered at him, as if expecting a joke. "What's Gambit? Are you serious? You really don't know?"

"I just spent six weeks in the Reef," Jayesh said, a trifle wearily. "I'm behind on news."

Cal grinned suddenly. "You must be the only Guardian who doesn't know. Well, then. I'll fill you in tomorrow."

* * *

Jayesh went home and collapsed on the sofa. He stayed there even as his toddler, Connor, carefully piled him with toys.

When Kari came in to check on them, Jayesh was asleep, covered in an assortment of toy cars and stuffed animals. Connor was cramming his father's robe pockets full of blocks. Connor's ghost, Varan, floated nearby, talking to Phoenix and overseeing these activities.

Kari sighed. "Con, what are you doing?"

He looked up and explained in baby jabber, motioning to the toys and his beloved daddy.

Kari bent over Jayesh, smoothed back his hair, and kissed his forehead. His eyes fluttered open, and he smiled up at her. Then he looked down at the sea of toys covering him. "Been busy, Connor?" He sat up, displacing toys in an avalanche.

Kari retrieved the various containers the toys had come from and set about cleaning up, praising Connor when he helped. Jayesh stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and emerged with handfuls of blocks.

"How did your meeting go?" Kari asked, shaking her auburn hair out of her eyes.

Jayesh dumped the blocks in their box. "Ikora is letting me train, but the Praxic Order are scary."

Kari grinned. "They didn't used to be, but yes. Our very own Knights Templar."

She put away the toys and sat on the sofa, pulling Jayesh down beside her. Connor vanished into his room and dumped out all the toys they had just put away.

Jayesh put his arms around his wife and leaned his head against hers. Despite its annoyances, home was the best place to be.

She stroked his face. "You fell asleep."

"I know. They assigned me to work with Cal. You know, the Titan in robes."

Kari smiled. "Oh, him. He's the only one of them I ever liked. I think you'll get along just fine."

Jayesh sighed. "I hope so. He's taking me on EDZ patrol tomorrow, where we can practice fire without blowing anything up."

"Forest fires are a concern," Kari said. "But yes, that'll be good for you. You've been stuck in the Tower since you got home."

"I feel like I've been in hibernation," Jayesh said. "All I've done is sleep."

Connor reappeared, carrying his ghost in one hand. He climbed into Jayesh's lap and sat there, babbling half-formed words, and turning Varan's segments back and forth. She permitted this, gazing up at her young Guardian adoringly.

"It worked, didn't it?" Kari said. "You're recovering."

"Slowly," Jayesh said, patting his son's back and gently pulling the ghost from his hands. He cleaned Varan's smeared eye lens with his sleeve and let her go. She flew straight back into Connor's lap.

Jayesh leaned back with a sigh. "It's been so dark, Kari. Some days I can feel it creeping up on me. And sometimes there's voices. Other times, I think I'm still making blind leaps in the dark, only I'm alone."

Kari stroked his hair. "I'm here, heartspark. Any time you need me, I'm here."

He nuzzled her and kissed her temple. "I'd be such a wreck without you."

Connor climbed up the couch and fell off the back with a thump. A moment later, he reappeared to do it again, giggling.

"That gets annoying, though," Jayesh remarked.

Kari sighed. "I know. There's no place I can take him to play, except down in the City."

Jayesh groaned and leaned his head back. "So, patrol tomorrow. Training. Get my Light working. Figure out this Sunsinger thing. Oh. What's Gambit?"

He lifted his head to find that Kari's smile had faded. "Right. You don't know."

"What?"

"Sometime in the last few months," Kari said, "this guy showed up in the Tower. He's a ... not a Guardian, but he has a ghost, so, a Lightbearer. Calls himself the Drifter. Shady as hell. He had this little spot in a back alley for a while, runs this game called Gambit. Two teams fight enemies that he controls, first team to take down their enemies wins. But there's this thing with harvesting and banking motes of Darkness ... and he can summon and dismiss Taken ... I don't know, Jay. It's getting to be more popular than Crucible, but nobody talks about it. The Vanguard isn't supposed to know what's going on."

Jayesh sat there in silence, frowning. "No wonder the Praxic Order is concerned."

Kari nodded. "There's this part where one Guardian can invade the other team at certain times. And they get this boost of power ... like Taken have. I've talked to people who are addicted to that rush. They can't wait for their next match. They do well, the Drifter gives them the Dredgen title. We have a lot of Dredgens running around right now."

Jayesh stared at her. "And the Vanguard has allowed this to go on?"

Kari shrugged. "Nobody's been permanently killed, so they're biding their time."

Jayesh thought about this for a while. It was one more enormous problem he couldn't change, like the curse on the Dreaming City.

"Nell's into it," Kari added.

Jayesh rolled his eyes. "Of course she is. That's the kind of sport she'd love."

Nell was one of their friends and fireteammates, a fearless hunter whose loyalty lay with her ghost and pretty much nowhere else.

"I'll bet she'd know all about Gambit's inner workings," Jayesh mused. "I'm glad Uldren's staying away. I'm afraid he'd wind up champion of every sport we have, sanctioned and unsanctioned."

"Shh," Kari whispered. "We're not supposed to talk about him, remember?"

"I know." Although rumor of Uldren's resurrection as a Guardian had spread throughout the Vanguard, no one offered any proof. The only eyewitness was Jayesh, and he couldn't file a report. At this point, he wasn't sure he wanted to. Outing his friend to the hurting, vengeful Guardians seemed unwise. Uldren had taken off in a new ship, and Jayesh hadn't heard from him since. He didn't expect to - friendship with the Awoken Prince was too dangerous.

Jayesh slowly climbed to his feet. He gestured once, then twice. Kari realized it was the gesture a Dawnblade made to summon their sword. At the look on Jayesh's face, she realized that he still held out hope that his power might return. He noticed her looking and smiled, a little stiffly. "May I borrow your old sword?"

Kari stood with a pained expression. One simple question, and so much sadness behind it. Sunsingers, while formidable fighters, summoned no weapons. And he did love his sword.

Kari opened the weapons chest in their room, where all things dangerous were safe from a toddler's inquisitive fingers. Her sword was sheathed and wrapped in cloth. She lifted it out and passed it to her husband.

Jayesh drew the sword and held the blade across his palms, testing the weight. Then he lifted it to middle guard and held it there. "Good balance. Heavier than my Dawnblade, but I can learn to use it." He sheathed it and stood gazing at it a long moment. When he looked up, his eyes were moist. He drew a deep breath and smiled, trying to hide this. "At least I'll still have a sword, right?"

Kari hugged him without a word, her heart wrung at the sight of him fighting to put himself back together. "You'll be all right," she whispered. "You'll get through this and be even stronger."

He set down the sword and wrapped his arms around her. She felt his breathing catching in his chest as he struggled to hold back tears. "It's gone, Kari. It's gone and I can't get past it."

She wanted to reply with platitudes about rest, healing, giving it time, and so on. But she couldn't do it. He'd been hideously mangled in a metaphysical way, and she had no idea if that could ever be fixed.

She held him for a long time.


	2. Chapter 2: Shin Malphur

Cal and Jayesh set out for the EDZ at 0600 the next morning. Jayesh flew his jumpship in formation with Cal's fighter, the guns on its wings like sharp claws.

Phoenix, Jayesh's ghost, slept on his lap the entire three-hour trip. Ghosts usually didn't require sleep, being mostly mechanical parts wrapped around a spark of Light. But Phoenix had spent the last month healing Jayesh's mind, especially at night, while he slept. The ghost was spent. Jayesh let him rest.

As they crossed the Pacific Ocean at high altitude, Jayesh spoke to Cal over the radio. "Whereabouts are we planning to land?"

"Southern Europe," Cal replied. "Around the Shard of the Traveler. Weird place, but good for Light practice."

"I thought the Shard had polluted the land?" Jayesh asked.

Cal grunted. "You ever been there?"

"No, only read about it."

"Consider this a field trip, then. I've been studying the Shard since we found it, have my own theories."

"Ever publish any papers?"

Cal was silent a moment. "Do you know what happened to Osiris?"

Jayesh blinked at his instrument panel, since he couldn't see his companion. "Yes ... he was exiled for heresy."

"Well." Cal hesitated. "Let's say that my views might also be seen as heresy."

Jayesh glanced out of his cockpit window at the bigger ship flying ahead of his. "How do you stay in the Praxic Order if you hold controversial views? I thought they were very by the book."

"They are." Cal hesitated, then went on, "But you're not one of us. I can talk to you. I know your record. Never did hold with what the media did to you."

Jayesh was silent. Even though the City media had long ago moved on to other topics, his reputation as the lunatic who claimed to speak to the Traveler lived on. No matter what he accomplished, people still looked at him funny when they heard his name. At least Cal disagreed with the slander.

As the European continent came into view on the horizon, Jayesh sensed that his ghost was dreaming. It was an odd feeling, picking up Phoenix through their bond, sensing how he felt about whatever was happening inside his mind. At the moment, Phoenix was lonely and scared. These feelings grew stronger. The ghost's segments moved a little, as if he was trying to open his core. Then suddenly his eye blinked on and he shot into the air. He hit the glass canopy and fell back into Jayesh's lap.

"Whoa, you all right?" Jayesh asked, steadying him with one hand.

Phoenix floated into the air again, spinning in place to look around the cockpit. "Oh. The ship. Right." He flew up and burrowed into his Guardian's hair. "I was dreaming about waiting at the portal," he whispered. "But you didn't come back. And I went into the Ascendant Realm. And the Mindbender was there."

Jayesh stroked the ghost. "It was just a bad dream. I've had plenty lately."

Phoenix settled on his shoulder, his slight weight a comforting presence. "We can get through this," he murmured. "Somehow. Light, between your injuries and mine, we're in a feedback loop of awful."

"We'll break the loop," Jayesh told him. "But it'll take time."

They watched the controls and the oncoming landscape. When Cal veered to the southeast, Jayesh followed.

In another hour, they sighted the plume of smoke rising from the Shard of the Traveler long before they saw the Shard itself. They swooped down and landed in a wide meadow a few miles away from it. It was a warm spring day, and the grass underfoot was such a vibrant green that Jayesh pulled off his helmet to make sure the glass wasn't deceiving his eyes.

Cal didn't seem so huge outdoors. He pulled off his helmet, too, and drew a deep breath of fresh air. "Good land, this," he remarked. "When the City population is ready to expand, we need to come back out here." He set off toward the Shard, which was like a mountain standing on its own in the midst of a forest. Jayesh studied it as they walked.

The Shard was a great crescent of the silver material that composed the Traveler's shell. The inside edge had a great deal of the vaulted cathedral structure that Jayesh had seen inside. Lightning crackled over it and arced to the ground. Smoke and haze billowed constantly from the wreckage.

"Ouch," Jayesh remarked. "I didn't realize it was so big."

"The Traveler lost this when the Darkness came," Cal told him, his vivid blue eyes fixed on the Shard. "It's been here for centuries, pouring undiluted Light straight into the ground."

"That doesn't sound good," Jayesh said.

Cal shook his head. "It's not. Light wasn't meant to be used that way. Still. It's fascinating to see what it's done. There's all-new flora species growing from the pollution, feeding on the spilled Light. There's much we can learn about the Traveler's terraforming methods. My hope is that we can someday wield our Light in the same way to terraform planets."

Jayesh blinked at his companion. "You think so? Our powers are combat-oriented."

"Ours are," Cal said, waving a hand impatiently. "We're Guardians, created for a specific purpose. But the Traveler does so much more than that. It doesn't hurt to learn about it."

Here was another person as interested in the Traveler as Jayesh, himself. They fell to discussing Light theory as they walked, the conversation becoming enthusiastic and animated. Jayesh actually told Cal about his time inside the Traveler and the discussions they'd had. Cal listened intently and had his ghost take notes.

As they neared the foot of the Shard, the trees around them died, their leafless branches still held to the sky. Dark blue plants covered the ground, their leaves and stems growing in strange shapes. Some had sent out oblong buds or flowers that glowed with Light. Jayesh picked one. It glowed for a while in his hand, then slowly faded.

Cal turned to him. "My thinking is, you need Light. This isn't the best quality Light, but there's a lot of it. Maybe it'll make a difference."

"Maybe." Jayesh studied the glowing plants. "This is weird as anything, but who knows?"

"Let's practice," Cal said. "Novice training. Show me your fire."

Jayesh summoned the pathetic flickers that remained of his Solar Light. Cal made him do it again and again, patiently walking him through the mental training and focus exercises. The big warlock never grew impatient, even though Jayesh had trouble maintaining fire for longer than a minute.

Jayesh, however, grew miserably frustrated. "This used to be _easy_!" he burst out. "When I entered warlock training, I summoned the sword on my first try. Now look at me. I can't even call fire."

Cal watched him as Jayesh flung himself on the ground. There was a moment of silence, broken only by Jayesh's panting. Then Cal said, "How do you know you're a Sunsinger?"

"The Traveler said I was," Jayesh mumbled.

Cal turned and gazed at the Shard, which was visible through the trees. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Cal said, "Maybe you'd better tell me exactly what the Traveler told you."

Jayesh repeated its words about learning the song of suns and stars. "Then it taught me a song. Kind of a weird melody, no words."

"Sing it," Cal said.

Jayesh stood up again, suddenly self-conscious. "You want me to sing?"

"Much like mathematics," Cal replied, "music is a universal language. The Hive sing their magic. The Fallen perform rhythmic chanting at their gatherings. Why shouldn't we, too, work our Light in song?"

Jayesh considered this. "Are you a Sunsinger?"

"I was," Cal said. His face fell for the first time. "When the Traveler awakened, my Light returned as a Dawnblade. It happened to many of us." He held out a hand. "Sword." The fiery sword appeared in his hand, rippling with flame.

Jayesh gazed at it, pierced with longing. He extended a hand. "Sword." Nothing happened. His hand remained empty.

Cal let his sword disappear. "Sing the song, then. It might enable you to reach the fire."

Embarrassed, Jayesh cleared his throat a few times. He didn't sing much, and was certain that he wouldn't be able to hit the right notes. But Cal was waiting, and Jayesh did want his powers back. So, after a few halting attempts, he began to sing.

Within the first few notes, the Light inside him steadied. Jayesh's frustration calmed. His last contact with the Traveler had been this song - an aria similar to the way his ghost had interceded for him. Around him, the blue Light flowers grew brighter. Cal smiled, as if he recognized the melody.

Jayesh broke off. "Then it starts over."

"Sing it again," Cal said. "Summon your fire while you sing."

Jayesh did, which was harder than he expected. Concentrating on getting the tune right while concentrating on the fire made his brain twist into pretzels. When the fire came, it leaped into being, blazing from his palm with a life of its own. Jayesh closed his fist, then opened it again to summon a grenade. It appeared, a burning, dangerous ball of Light. He was so delighted, he stopped singing to say, "Look!"

At once, the grenade fizzled and disappeared.

"Don't stop," Cal said, grinning.

Jayesh sang until he was hoarse, working through the motions of summoning every kind of fire. He secretly tried to summon his sword a few times, but nothing happened.

When his voice gave out and he started to cough, Cal let him rest.

"Don't expect to go into combat singing at the top of your lungs," Cal told him, passing him a water bottle. "A Sunsinger is only a conduit for the song. The song, itself, is outside you, the resonance of atoms, the orbit of planets, the great surges of gravity throughout the universe. You have to learn to hear it and find your place within it."

Jayesh drained half the bottle. "How does healing work?"

Cal tilted his head. "What healing?"

"How do Sunsingers heal?"

"They don't."

Jayesh stared at him. "But ... I'm a healer. The Traveler granted me a seed of light for it. There must be a way."

Cal shrugged. "Unless the Traveler taught you a different song, you can't heal as a Sunsinger."

"Well, it did." Jayesh recalled the softer, minor key that the Traveler had called the _tender refrain of healing_. He hummed it and felt the Light inside him change.

"Phoenix," he thought, "heal my tired throat?"

His ghost appeared and did so, sweeping a beam up and down his neck. The sore, scratchy feeling vanished.

Jayesh tried singing the other song, which was simply an extra verse of the fire song. He took the Light inside him and stamped his feet, opening a healing rift on the ground around him. Blue light sparkled underfoot.

Cal raised one eyebrow and clapped slowly.

"I did it!" Jayesh exclaimed. But as soon as he stopped singing, the rift faded. He gazed at the vanishing Light, his triumph disappearing with it. "This is much harder than it used to be."

"I'd gladly trade places with you," Cal said, so quietly that Jayesh barely heard him.

Jayesh looked up. "You miss it?"

Cal shrugged. "I was a Sunsinger. You were a Dawnblade. Now we've been forced to switch disciplines."

Jayesh tried to think of something to say, but couldn't. Should he offer sympathy? Or say that he disliked being a Sunsinger already and wanted to return to being a Dawnblade? That would be rude.

In his head, Phoenix said suddenly, "Guardians coming. Put on your helmet."

Confused, Jayesh retrieved his helmet from the tree branch where he had hung it and jammed it on. Nearby, Cal's ghost must have given him the same instructions. He buckled on his own helmet.

"Why helmets?" Jayesh asked. "They're just Guardians."

"I have a feeling," Phoenix replied cryptically.

Jayesh had Phoenix transmat him his sidearm and hand cannon, Drang and Sturm, just in case. Cal's ghost transmatted him a submachine gun that he held easily in one big hand.

Three Guardians appeared, picking their way through the dead trees. They walked with a prowling swagger, as if unafraid of the forest and its dangers. Their gear was dirty and tattered, as if they had been in the field a long time. Jayesh couldn't tell what classes they were - all three wore cloaks over armor. Hunters, maybe.

As the three stalked toward Jayesh and Cal, uneasiness swept Jayesh. Why did they move so aggressively? What might they want?

"Phoenix, any reads?"

"Their ghosts are laying low," Phoenix replied. "Tags are masked. They don't want us to know who they are. And their weapons - Jay, their weapons -"

Cal stepped forward, raising a friendly hand. "Hello, Guardians. What brings you here?"

"The same thing that brings you here," said the foremost Hunter. "Investigating the Shard."

"What about their weapons?" Jayesh thought. "Their cloaks are hiding them."

"Heavily modded," Phoenix said. "Displaying scan on your helmet screen."

A picture appeared of a rifle outlined in green. At first glance, it looked like an average scout rifle with a custom scope. Then Phoenix highlighted the mods in red. Jayesh's eyes widened.

"We're in need of transport," one of the other Hunters said. "Got extra space on your ships?"

"Not mine," Jayesh said. "It's just a basic jumpship."

Cal shrugged. "Mine? I couldn't say."

"Where are you docked?" the third Hunter asked.

Jayesh opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. Those mods on that rifle ...

"That's none of your business," Cal said, his hand dropping to the butt of the pistol at his hip. "What're you three really after?"

The three Guardians drew their weapons. A rifle and two hand cannons. All had been infused with bone, transforming them into jagged, ugly shapes. Just looking at them turned Jayesh's stomach. Weapons of sorrow, capable of extinguishing a Guardian's light forever. The Praxic Order was working to keep these very weapons away from Guardians, yet this fireteam had three.

"We'll be taking your ships," said the lead Hunter. "You won't need them any more."

_They're going to kill us double-dead, Phoenix!_

_Run, Jay! Run!_

Jayesh dove sideways into the bushes an instant before the Guardians fired. Cal leaped straight up into the treetops. As Jayesh rolled to his feet, he glimpsed a long black spike impact a tree trunk a few inches from his head. Devourer Bullets. These rogues had done the job properly.

Then Jayesh was running for his life and there was no time for further thought. He wove between trees and slid down the hillside, trying to keep as much of the terrain between himself and enemy fire as possible. Behind him, several more shots were fired in quick succession, then fell silent.

"Cal better not be dead," Jayesh thought, dodging around a rock. He leaped through a patch of the glowing mutant flowers, his boots crushing their leaves and releasing a strange, pungent odor. "They're following me back to the ships! Phoenix, guide me somewhere else!"

"I've detected another Guardian," Phoenix said. "Southeast. Turn right. I've alerted his ghost that we're fleeing three hostile Lightbearers."

"How do you know this one isn't rogue?"

"His ghost's tag wasn't masked."

Jayesh swerved and climbed a hillside, his breath beginning to rasp in his lungs. Usually, while running, he'd draw on his Light to empower his muscles. But in order to do that now, he had to sing the song, and at the moment, he couldn't even think of how it went.

"I'm not going to die today," he told himself fiercely. "I have Kari and Connor depending on me. The Vanguard needs Guardians. I can't afford to die today."

He whirled and raised both weapons. Three dark shapes flitted through the trees a hundred feet behind him. He fired at them and they ducked. Good, that might give them something to think about. He whirled and kept running. "What I wouldn't give for a grenade."

On the tiny map in his helmet, Phoenix dropped an arrow pointing at a blue dot. "Almost there! The other Guardian is moving toward us. When you see him, drop. His ghost says -"

Jayesh plunged through a tangled thicket, almost stuck, tore himself free, leaving his robe and skin in tatters, and saw the lone Guardian. He stood in an open spot among the trees, a golden gun burning in one hand, ready to raise and fire.

Jayesh threw himself behind a tree and crouched, gasping for breath. The lone Guardian nodded briefly, then fixed his attention on the pursuit. Another Hunter, Jayesh thought - this one in proper armor and hood, his gear cleaned and well kept.

The lone Hunter stalked slowly down the hill, out of Jayesh's range of vision. Jayesh watched the dots on his helmet map. The three hostiles drew closer and closer, the single blue dot moving to meet them -

Three gunshots from the golden gun. Panicked shouts from the rogues. Two red dots vanished. The third fled at an angle. The blue dot ran in pursuit.

"He got them," Jayesh whispered, straightening. "Thank the Traveler. Who was that guy?"

"Uh," Phoenix said. "Do you know who Shin Malphur is?"

"Should I?" Jayesh said. "Can you detect Cal?"

"His ghost is that way," Phoenix said, dropping an arrow on the map. "Light, Jayesh, haven't you read about the first weapon of sorrow?"

"Once," Jayesh said, jogging back through the trees. "It was on the test for becoming a warlock. Is Cal alive?"

"His ghost says yes, but injured. Jayesh, Shin Malphur killed Dredgen Yor."

"Good for him," Jayesh said. "Do you know the healing song? I can't think of it to save my life right now."

"Yes," Phoenix exclaimed in exasperation. "Jay, pay attention! We may have stumbled across something big!"

"Yes, they used weapons of sorrow on us, I noticed." Jayesh barely heard Phoenix over the noise of his own running. He pounded back uphill toward Cal's dot on his map. "Don't die, please, don't die ..."

He found the big warlock kneeling in a clump of trees, clutching a bloody wound in his side. He gripped his submachine gun in his other hand, and aimed it at Jayesh for a second as he approached. Then Cal recognized him and relaxed.

"They got you?" Jayesh panted, kneeling beside his companion.

"I removed the projectile," Cal grunted, pointing at a gory spike lying on the leaves. "Could use some of that healing song right now."

Jayesh sat there a moment, trying to calm himself and catch his breath. In his head, Phoenix helpfully hummed the first few bars of the song.

Jayesh hummed along, which was easier than singing. Fortunately, his Light responded just as well. Jayesh dropped a healing rift under Cal and kept humming as it worked. Cal's ghost appeared and focused healing directly on the wound. Cal exhaled and leaned against a tree trunk, closing his eyes in relief.

Jayesh was still working when his helmet HUD showed the friendly Guardian approaching. Jayesh nudged Cal and pointed, not daring to stop humming.

The single Hunter approached through the trees, carrying a hand cannon ready in both hands. He wore goggles that obscured his eyes, but his nose and mouth were visible.

Cal lifted a hand in a weak salute. "Shin."

The Hunter nodded. "Cal."

Shin holstered his weapon. "Killed two of the bastards. The third escaped. Had a chat with their ghosts. They could abandon their Guardians, or take a bullet."

Jayesh broke off his song to exclaim, "You kill ghosts?"

In response, Shin tossed the remains of a ghost shell on the leaves. "One of them refused to leave."

Jayesh stared at the dead ghost in sick horror. He couldn't even react, only stare until his stomach threatened to empty itself. He turned away hurriedly and studied Cal's wound.

Cal said, "Harsh."

"Has to be done," Shin said. "These Guardians think playing with Darkness is fun. Who will stop them, they ask, when they prey on the Light? Their ghosts have either given up or joined them. They're far from the Vanguard ... or the Praxic order," he added, glancing at the logo on Cal's warlock bond.

"So you give them something to fear," Cal finished.

Shin inclined his head. "Believe me, I take no pleasure in ghost killing. I always give them a choice."

Jayesh sensed Phoenix's shiver.

Shin turned to Jayesh. "Nice move, kiting them straight to me. I've been hunting them for days. How'd you know I was in the area?"

"I didn't," Jayesh replied, rising to his feet. He barely knew how to speak to a man who killed Guardians so casually. His natural garrulousness came to his aid. "They wanted our ships, so I couldn't lead them there. My ghost picked you up and guided me."

Shin nodded, shifting his weight to a more relaxed stance. "Thinking on your feet. Good job. Crucible much?"

"N-no."

Shin lowered his head. "Gambit?"

"No."

Shin studied him a moment, inscrutable behind the goggles. "Maybe you should start."

"Gambit?" Jayesh said. "But ... isn't it all about corrupting Guardians or something?"

"Nothing is what it seems," Shin replied. "Can a game truly place corruption in a man's heart? Or does it only reveal what already lay beneath?"

Jayesh didn't expect a speech like this from a Hunter. After a moment of gathering his wits, he said, "What if I'm already aware of my weakness and have no desire to tread that path any further?"

Shin studied him from behind his goggles in silence. Jayesh had the impression that he was being weighed and measured in some way. Then Shin reached into the pack on his back and produced one of the bone-covered hand cannons. He held it out, grip-first.

Jayesh backed away. "I don't want that."

"Take it," Shin said, tossing it. The cannon landed at Jayesh's feet. "Destroy it. Or use it, if you're so inclined."

"You're giving me a weapon of sorrow?" Jayesh exclaimed. "Look, I had enough of Darkness when Riven and I had a little face to face visit. I'm not doing that again."

"Riven," Shin said softly, appraisingly. "Did your Light affect her?"

"No," Jayesh muttered. "She fed on it."

Shin gestured at the cannon. "Darkness is coming. We Guardians will be its prey - unless we use powers it cannot devour. Darkness cannot consume Darkness."

"And Darkness also lies," Jayesh counters. "It brings madness and death."

"Only if you choose so," Shin replied. "When we reach a place where there is no light, we must use such weapons as we have. Use the cannon, or destroy it. Give a thought to Gambit. It's not as harmful as some say." He turned and walked away into the trees.

Jayesh gazed after him. Then he nudged the hand cannon with the toe of his boot.

Cal straightened, cautiously drawing a deep breath. Finding the pain diminished, he rose to his feet. "Well?"

Jayesh looked up at him. "Is Shin Malphur ... sane?"

A smile slowly spread across Cal's face. "In some ways, the man is more sane than you or I. In others, he's mad as a Hive thrall. If you take the cannon, I won't tell the Order."

Jayesh picked it up with the corner of his robe, reluctant to touch the corrupted weapon. "I'll take it back and destroy it. I don't want the thing in my apartment, let alone the Tower."

"You can use the Praxic Order's weapon lockers," Cal said. "They have lead-lined ones for dangerous items." He coughed a little and clutched his side. "Let's go."


	3. Chapter 3: The Drifter

Jayesh didn't notice his exhaustion until he was in the security of his cockpit at ten thousand feet. Then he realized that his head was buzzing and fatigue dragged at his limbs. "Fly for me, Phoenix," he said, and went to sleep.

He didn't wake up until someone shook him. He opened bleary eyes and saw three mechanics peering down at him. The canopy of his ship was open, and he was docked in the Tower hanger. Phoenix hung in the air nearby, watching anxiously.

"Sorry," he mumbled, unbuckling the flight harness.

"You all right, mate?" one of the mechanics asked, helping him down the ladder.

Jayesh's head had stopped buzzing, but he felt like he was moving in slow motion. "I don't know," he said, and drifted toward the hanger stairs. The mechanics gazed after him in concern.

It seemed to take hours to leave the hanger, cross the Tower, and descend the stairs to the living quarters in the wall below. The familiar people and canopies over little outdoor shops seemed less real than the dead forest and glowing, Light-infused plants. He waded through a sea of waving stems, the blue flowers brushing him.

When he finally made it home, he barely had the strength to greet Kari and Connor. Was he truly home, or wandering the polluted forest below the Shard?

Kari took one look at him and guided him to the bedroom. He collapsed on the bed and thought he was sinking among the glowing plants, feeling the Light in the ground, all around him, sick and wrong, the life growing too profusely.

"Traveler, why?" he whispered. "Why must the Light be used to harm instead of heal?"

In the dream, he climbed the hill to the Shard, itself, and clambered among the ruins. "No more," he repeated. "No more, no more."

Shin Malphur was there, drinking the Light from a tall champagne glass. He wore a necklace of dead ghosts. "You must use the Darkness," he said. "Broken as you are, useless to all. It's coming and you can't stop it."

"I serve the Light," Jayesh insisted.

Shin turned and showed him piles and piles of alien corpses, species unknown to humans. "They had the Light. A lot of good it did them. Healing means nothing when the Devourer comes."

The dream changed, then. Jayesh looked upon black pyramids - thousands of them. All moving, consuming, crushing. The blue flowers withered and died. The Traveler faced them, small, alone, crippled. "Will you fight for me one last time?" it whispered to him.

Jayesh snapped awake in the dark, gasping, "I fight for you, Traveler! I ... fight ..." He was in bed at home, still wearing his combat robe. Thankfully, Kari had removed his boots. She lay beside him, reading a book on her tablet. When he awoke, she tensed and studied him.

"Kari?" he said, throwing back the blankets and sitting up. "Light, how long was I out?"

"Eighteen hours," Kari said, scrutinizing his face. "You've done nothing but talk in your sleep. Arguing with the Traveler, sounded like."

"Not the Traveler," Jayesh muttered, rubbing his face. "Shin Malphur."

"What about Shin Malphur?"

"We met him out there. He was hunting rogue Guardians."

Kari gestured, and her ghost, Neko, emerged from his little nest beside the bed. He swept Jayesh with a scan. "Still sick."

"Neko-" Jayesh looked around wildly. "Where's Phoenix?" He wasn't in his usual spot on Jayesh's pillow.

"Calm down," Kari said. "You were thrashing around so much, he had to bunk with Neko." She pointed at the ghost nest. It was just a little fabric pocket lined with artificial fleece. Phoenix was inside, asleep still, his eye turned off.

Jayesh relaxed and groaned, rubbing his eyes. Then he got up and pulled off his heavy robe and pants. "A day and a half. No wonder I'm so hungry. I barely remember arriving home."

"You were out of it," Kari replied, admiring his physique as he pulled on a nightshirt. "I'm glad you're back. I was worried."

"I'll tell you about it as I eat," he said.

They had a very late dinner together in their tiny kitchen. Connor was asleep, and the apartment seemed very quiet. Neko floated nearby, keeping watch.

Jayesh told Kari his adventures with training, meeting the rogue Guardians, and encountering Shin Malphur. "He was so strange, Kari, talking like a Cryptarch. He invited me to play Gambit, talked about how the corruption in a man's heart already exists, whether or not he plays a game. He gave me a weapon of sorrow. It must still be on my ship, unless Cal took it."

Kari gazed at Jayesh in silence, her lower lip between her teeth. She had let her auburn hair grow a little longer, lately. It framed her face, softening the line of her jaw. Jayesh gazed at her, taking in her beauty, her vulnerability, yet backed by a strong will and powerful Light. He stroked her cheek. "I'm sorry, lovelight. I must have scared you."

"Awfully," she whispered. "You're still so sick. When you got home, you were delirious, and so was your ghost. 'We're lost in Light', he kept saying. And you brought back a weapon of sorrow? Jay, you couldn't handle this even if you were well. But facing it when you're sick -and your Light isn't right -" She took his hand in both of hers.

Jayesh rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. The inside of his mind was still sore. And part of it was still dreaming of the glowing blue plants and flowers. What was it about that place that had so affected his mind?

Suddenly he wanted Kari in his arms, needed her like he needed food and drink. He rose to his feet, tugging her hand. She stood, too, and he pulled her against him. "I'm sorry," he whispered, wrapping his arms around her. "I have to get well. Darkness is coming, and I can't fight it like this."

She kissed him, slowly. "No more fighting tonight. Only rest."

He let her guide him back to bed. "Only rest," he whispered.

* * *

"You want to play Gambit?" Nell asked in astonishment.

It was a day later. Nell and Jayesh leaned against the guardrail at the edge of the Tower walk, drinking hot tea and gazing out at the Traveler and the Last City. Nell had jet-black hair that framed her face, her fair skin slightly sunburned beneath her eyes. Her armor was all leather and cloth, typical of a hunter. She had been a part of Jayesh and Kari's fireteam since they had sneaked to the Reef to avenge Cayde-6.

Nell scrutinized Jayesh's face. "Kari said you were on medical leave. You can't play Gambit if you're hurt. It's a rough game."

"I'm sick, not hurt," Jayesh replied. "And I don't want to actually play. I'd like to observe a game or two. Learn how it works so I can play when I'm well."

"Hm." Nell tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and looked him up and down. "Are you contagious?"

Jayesh tapped his forehead. "Psychic damage."

"You hear voices?" Nell asked, raising an eyebrow.

Jayesh grinned. "And I see things that aren't there. Like you. I might be talking to thin air right now, and I'd never know."

"I can be a pretty convincing hallucination," Nell replied, also grinning. "Woooo, I'm commanding you to talk to the Driiiiiiifter. He might let you onto his shiiiiiip if you ask niiiiicely."

Jayesh cupped one hand around his ear. "What's that? A voice just told me to talk to the Drifter."

Nell laughed. "Don't trust it. Voices are unreliable." She sobered. "Really, though, Jayesh, that's what's wrong with you?"

He shrugged. "A little, but it's not that bad. Mostly I get very tired very easily. And my Light isn't right. I'm having to retrain as a Sunsinger."

"No more sword?" Nell exclaimed. "But that sword was awesome!"

Jayesh drew the sword at his hip and brandished it. "I have this one. It works."

"Ooo, shiny." Nell grinned as he sheathed it. "I've got my knives. Anyway. I think if we explain to the Drifter, he'd probably let you observe. He's nice, especially to us younger Guardians. Calls us his kids."

"If it's all the same to you," said Jayesh, "I'm sick of being harassed about being four."

"Well, I'm not even two yet," Nell replied. "The Drifter's, like, between seven hundred and a thousand. He doesn't even keep track anymore."

"Was he one of the original Risen?"

"Sounds like it. Come on, I'll introduce you."

Nell drained the rest of her tea, took Jayesh's empty mug, and returned them to the tea shop nearby. Then she led him inside the new Tower and downstairs, on a winding route through old maintenance halls and closed-down machinery labs. At the end of a long hall was a single lighted room. Nell beckoned to her companion and ducked inside.

Inside was the Drifter's lair. Jayesh couldn't think of a better word for it. Half the room had been turned into messy living quarters, with pots and pans covering a table, a couple of folding chairs, and a crumpled sleeping bag. The other half of the room was occupied by a machine - a great clear tube - full of swirling Taken energy. Inky blackness and burning white spiraled together. Jayesh halted on the threshold, staring, his heart leaping into his throat.

Nell tugged at his arm. "It's okay! It's safe. That's just a mote bank."

"A _bank_?" Jayesh didn't dare take his eyes off the crawling, spiraling energy. "What's it doing in the Tower? What if it escapes?"

"I know my business better than that, brother," drawled a voice.

Jayesh tore his attention from the mote bank. A man lounged among the chaos of the living space. He wore leather and fur, with a greatcoat flung over all. His features were Asian, and scars slashed his cheeks, partially hidden by a short black beard. He must be an old Lightbearer, indeed, to carry scars not even a ghost could heal.

Nell tugged Jayesh toward the stranger. "Hi, Drifter! This is one of my fireteam mates, Jayesh. He's interested in Gambit."

The Drifter broke into a wide smile. It was the sort of overly-friendly, untrustworthy smile Jayesh had seen on carnival vendors down in the City. "All right, all right, all right. Come in, brother. Sit a while. You're not one of the regulars." He gestured to a folding chair.

Nell sat down, but Jayesh remained standing. His gaze wandered between the Drifter and that hypnotic, dancing Darkness. "That doesn't worry you?"

"That's one of my greatest inventions, brother," the Drifter said, following his gaze. "Encapsulated Taken. Just a little Darkness goes a long way." He looked Jayesh over. "But you'd know more about that than me, eh warlock?"

Jayesh tried to act casual. He turned his back on the mote bank and leaned against the railing that divided both halves of the room. "Maybe. You run Gambit?"

"I do," said the Drifter. "Best idea I ever had. You want a fun way to earn some cash? I got it right here. I can put your name down for the next game. Starts day after tomorrow."

"Actually," Jayesh said, "I can't play right now. Would it be possible for me to observe a game? Just to see how it works?"

The Drifter's eyes narrowed. "You spying for the Vanguard?"

"No," Jayesh said, taken aback. "I thought ... they don't know you're here, already?"

The Drifter's smile returned. "Gambit is what you might call unsanctioned. Keeping it on the down-low. Most of what we do here is, ah, outside the notice of the Vanguard. Trying to keep it that way."

The Praxic Order had certainly known all about it. But Jayesh kept that to himself.

The Drifter added, "Sure you don't want to play? It's easy. Bank motes of Darkness. Kill your primeval before the other team kills theirs. Get paid."

"Well, uh." Jayesh hadn't worked in a month, and a little extra glimmer would help his family's finances. "Maybe once I'm well."

"Well?" The Drifter gave him a sharp look. "You sick?"

"Psychic damage. Still recovering."

The Drifter's lightless eyes swept Jayesh's. "Well well. Had you a little encounter with the Taken, did you? Must have been a big one. What'd you do, spit on a Hive God?"

"Riven," Jayesh replied.

The Drifter threw back his head and laughed. He had an infectious laugh that invited everyone to join in. "Riven! That's a good one, brother. Been out doing good in the Dreaming City, eh? Real noble. Look what it got you."

Jayesh didn't reply.

The Drifter produced a rectangular green coin out of nowhere. He twirled it through his fingers, and suddenly there were two coins. He flipped one to Jayesh. "Sure, you can observe a match. Meet me at the Derelict on Tuesday. We'll be headed to Mars. Got a fun arena there. Keep quiet about this. You got my back, I got yours."

"I won't breathe a word."

The Drifter turned to Nell. "How about it, sister? You down for the next game?"

Nell pumped a fist. "Yes! What bounties are up?"

The Drifter pointed her toward a cork board on the wall by the door. Numerous bounties were posted there on scraps of paper. Nell went to examine them. Jayesh followed her. Kill so many enemies ... kill so many Guardians ... Jayesh was disconcerted to see that Nell took the latter first. She held up the paper. "I'm one of the top invaders right now. People beg me to be on their teams."

The Drifter chuckled. "That's right, sister. The regulars were in here earlier, asking if little Nell was playing. Your favorite Exo, Grant-4, was in here."

"What?" Nell spun, eyes flashing. "Oh, you can tell him that I'm going to kick his metal ass right to Phobos."

When Jayesh looked confused, Nell said, "Grant is the number two invader. We're always matched up against each other." She pointed at the Drifter. "I know you do it on purpose."

He held up both hands. "My ghost calculates the best teams, not me. Everybody wants strong invaders. Gotta be fair."

Nell shrugged and signed the bounty. "It'll be fun, anyway."

Jayesh couldn't wait to escape that room and the mote bank with its encapsulated Darkness. He and Nell told the Drifter goodbye and headed back upstairs.

"Doesn't that bother you?" Jayesh asked her. "Being around that much Darkness?"

"You get used to it," Nell replied. "Light and Darkness don't bother me the way they do you." She patted his shoulder. "Get well, okay? It'd be super fun to have you on my team."

"Right," Jayesh said, doubtfully.

They parted ways at the Tower walk. Nell headed off for a patrol, while Jayesh walked back toward the apartment stairs. "What did you think of the Drifter, Phoenix?"

His ghost appeared in a flash of blue. "His ghost can't talk."

"What do you mean, it can't talk?"

"He's been modded," Phoenix said. "The way you'd mod a weapon. Poor guy. We had to talk in text. Mostly we said hi, and he asked if you were really sick. That was all."

"Huh," Jayesh said. "What kind of person mods his ghost so it can't talk? Nell's ghost couldn't talk, and it was a big deal."

"Hadrian was locked out of all human communication," Phoenix replied. "The Drifter's ghost can do everything with computers. He just can't speak aloud."

"Maybe ghosts get annoying after a thousand years." Jayesh spun Phoenix's segments.

Phoenix halted them and settled them properly. "Stop that."

When they arrived home, Kari was looking worn, and Connor had covered the living room in blocks. Jayesh took one look and said, "Why don't we go down to the City's lake district and have lunch?"

"Yes, please," Kari said.

* * *

The lake district was a section of the Last City where an entire lake had been enclosed behind city walls to act as the water supply. It was kept clean and protected by evergreens in long windbreaks. Around it were grassy parks with playgrounds for families.

Connor had never seen a playground before. But after a while of watching other children climb ladders and slide down slides, he hurled himself into the fun. Kari and Jayesh sat at a picnic table in the shade and watched. Their ghosts zipped around the playground, too, ostensibly keeping an eye on the toddler, but playing just as hard as the children.

"I needed to get out of the Tower," Kari murmured, leaning her shoulder against her husband's. "This was a good idea. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Jayesh replied. "I met the Drifter today."

Kari smiled. "So that's where you went. Odd duck, isn't he?"

Jayesh nodded and recounted the conversation. "I'm set up to observe a Gambit match on Tuesday."

"Don't overdo it." Kari studied him anxiously. "I know you have more training tomorrow."

"It won't be like the first time," Jayesh replied. "I have no intention of sleeping for eighteen hours after every training session."

"I hope not." Kari rested her head on his shoulder. "Jay ... I think I'm pregnant again."

He tensed. "You are? Has Neko confirmed?"

"No ... I just have a feeling."

"Call Neko and have him check."

Kari did. Her ghost zipped up to them, his royal blue shell with its rampant lion flashing in the sun. "Yes?"

"Am I pregnant?" Kari asked him.

Neko jumped, his segments opening a little. "Pregnant? Again?" He swept his scan beam up and down her abdomen. Kari and Jayesh waited in suspense.

After a moment, Neko looked up. "Yes, looks like you're two weeks along. Not a Guardian, this time." He flew in a circle. "Oh dear, oh dear, you're pregnant again. I can be calm. You were just fine last time. I can be calm."

Kari held out a hand. Neko flew to hover over it. "Stop it, silly," she said, rubbing her nose against his eye lens. "Connor needs someone to play with. You were just telling me."

"Yes," Neko sighed. He gave Jayesh a sideways look. "I guess you're not that sick."

"Oh, buzz off," Jayesh said.

After a moment, Neko did, hunting Phoenix to tell him the news.

Jayesh wrapped an arm around Kari's shoulders and thought about their dwindling finances. Even the triple bounty he had earned for his work in the Dreaming City was fast disappearing. "Oh, lovelight. I'm not doing a very good job of caring for you."

"You're getting better," Kari said stoutly. "And I've been working part time at the Archives. We won't starve."

Jayesh's heart wrenched at the thought of his pregnant wife having to support them because he had gone out and gotten his brain ripped up. "I'm going back to work next week. Local patrols shouldn't be a big deal."

"Ikora told you to rest," Kari said, giving him a little shake. "Patrols aren't rest."

"I'm resting right now," Jayesh said. "Look, sitting down and everything."

"You know what I mean," Kari replied. "You should be doing those relaxation exercises the doctor showed you. You can't keep coming home in a delirium. I was so scared, Jay."

He sat there in silence, watching Connor swing from a set of climbing bars. His ghost cheered him on. Phoenix and Neko floated under a slide, talking and casting anxious glances at their Guardians.

"I wish my Light would come back," he muttered.

"Look at me," Kari said.

Jayesh did. She gazed into his eyes, stroking his eyebrow and cheek, following the fading scars. "I see Light in your eyes. It's not gone."

"No, it's changed." Jayesh looked into her eyes, too, letting himself sink into their hazel depths. An electrical spark flickered deep within, ready to erupt in lightning at a thought. Kari may have taken in the role of a stay-home mother, but she was also a Guardian, and a ferocious fighter. In that moment, Jayesh admired her fervently for being both.

"Light, Kari, why did you ever marry me?"

She blinked, taken aback. "Why? Because I love you."

"Yes, but ..." He gestured at the playground. "Now you're stuck at home with a toddler and an irresponsible husband who gets himself hurt."

She squeezed his shoulders with one arm. "It's not forever, you know that. And I'm extremely privileged to have children and a loving husband. Most Guardians never experience it."

"Yes, but ..." Jayesh drew a deep breath. "In the Dreaming City, Madrid told me that Darkness is coming back. The kind that caused the Collapse. Mara Sov is preparing to meet it. And ... and I have you and Connor and this new little one to think about. Kari ... I can't afford to lose any of you."

Kari sat frozen, staring at the playground without seeing it. After a moment, she said, "That explains it."

"What?"

"The Vanguard is preparing. Letting Gambit go on. Sending Guardians to the Dreaming City. Even-even allying with Spider. And there's this underground Black Armory that just opened its doors to Guardians. Now I understand." She turned to Jayesh, the lightning in her eyes flashing. "When the Darkness comes, we'll fight."

Words couldn't express how much he loved her at that moment. So Jayesh kissed her, instead. She grabbed him and kissed him, hard. When she finally let him go, Jayesh was slightly giddy. "You're fun."

She smiled. "So are you, Jay. Now go over there and show you son how to use the swings."

"_I_ don't know how to use the swings," Jayesh said in an undertone.

Kari snorted in outrage. "Allow me to educate you both."

Afterwards, all three ghosts agreed that the sight of their Guardians on swings with a toddler was one of the funniest sights they'd ever seen.


	4. Chapter 4: Paper Tigers

The next day dawned cloudy and threatening. It was late spring, and the warmer air had brought with it the annual storms.

Jayesh walked along the wall toward the Praxic Order's headquarters, keeping an eye on the weather. "It was a storm like this that let the Red Legion sneak in."

"Same time of year, too," Phoenix replied. "The Solstice holiday is in a few weeks."

Lightning flashed behind the hills to the west, lighting the Traveler's sphere with white. After a while, the barest hint of thunder reached Jayesh's ears.

"Yay, training," Jayesh muttered. "Probably summoning fire in the rain. That'll be fun."

Cal was waiting for him around the corner of the Order's guard tower. The huge warlock wore a waterproof poncho and slouched against the wall, watching the storm and smoking a short pipe. Whatever was in the pipe wasn't tobacco and smelled like wet leaves.

"Hey," Jayesh said in greeting.

"Hey," Cal grunted. He nodded at the dark clouds. "Sure you wouldn't rather be a Stormcaller? Good weather for it."

"I kind of want to stick with Solar," Jayesh replied. "But ... yes, the weather's looking nasty."

Cal straightened and tapped the embers out of his pipe over the edge of the wall. "I thought we'd work on the basics today. Throwing practice. Good for grenade accuracy." He lifted a canvas bag from the floor beside him. It had protective gear and many scuffed-looking balls from different types of games. "We'll play in the hanger. Better than out in the rain."

Relieved, Jayesh followed Cal toward the hanger. "Thanks for not making us stay out in this. Or go out in the field. I just found out that my wife's pregnant again."

Cal glanced over his shoulder. "Congratulations. You already have a kid?"

Jayesh nodded with a sudden glow of pride. "A son, and he's already a Guardian."

"Your wife have any trouble?"

Jayesh related the story of Connor's pre-natal health problems, resolved only when his ghost was found.

Cal listened, nodding. When Jayesh finished, Cal said, "I had a girl once. We lost three babies. Things fell apart and she left. Died at Twilight Gap."

"I'm sorry," Jayesh said. The words seemed too small to address the magnitude of such grief. A Guardian would carry that the rest of their long life.

Cal shrugged. "It was a long time ago, now. I've moved on. Just wanted to say, you have kids that survive, thank the Light for them every day."

"I do," Jayesh said.

The rest of their journey passed in silence.

The hanger was always busy with ships coming and going. Cal led Jayesh to an unused landing dock, which was a long, narrow platform with catwalks along either side.

"Don't miss," Cal said, pointing at the recessed floor twenty feet below them. It was full of equipment, fuel tanks, coiled hoses, and sparrow parts on pallets. "Hunting around down there for a little ball is a chore." He handed Jayesh a heavy leather glove. "Head to the far end."

The two Guardians tossed balls back and forth. Jayesh could throw, but wasn't much good at catching. He wound up having to chase lots of balls beneath the dock.

"I take it that Sunsingers rely on throwing grenades?" Jayesh panted, leaping back up on the dock with his Light powers for the ninth time.

"Basically," Cal replied. "Thing is, the melody can turn your grenade into a small sun. You sing up your supercharge, then pour it into sun after sun that you fling at your enemies. They stick to any surface and burn like crazy. Fusion reaction, you see. After a while, they run out of fuel and go out. But I've seen Sunsingers pile grenades together to make one giant sun. Then they throw it and burn down an entire ship, or skyscraper, or Vex structure."

Jayesh considered the ball in his hand a moment before throwing it. "So, I could make bombs."

"Essentially," Cal replied. "But the most powerful tool in a Sunsinger's arsenal isn't the fire. It's a self-resurrection. No ghost needed. You bring yourself back with your own Light."

Jayesh gaped at him. His throw went wide, bounced off the wall, and rolled beneath the dock. "That's ... but I've done that before!"

Cal lowered one bushy eyebrow. "You resurrected yourself as a Dawnblade?"

"Not me - my ghost. It's why I named him Phoenix. He came back to life in fire."

Cal studied him. "Tell me about it."

Jayesh did, calling the story up to him as he hunted the dropped ball. "The Cult of Osiris decided they didn't like me claiming to speak to the Traveler. They tried to murder my ghost and me. As I died, I passed him my whole Dawnblade supercharge and it revived him. He actually killed an enemy Guardian's ghost with it."

Cal grunted. "Huh. Never heard of something like that. Sounds damn risky."

"It was, but I had nothing to lose. We were both about to be dead."

"Why didn't you use your supercharge on the people killing you?"

Jayesh jumped back up on the dock and tossed him the ball. "Well, I ... most of them were humans. And ... I don't ..." He exhaled and hung his head. "I don't use Light on humans."

"But they killed you and your ghost," Cal pointed out. "You'd have been justified in fighting them."

"It wouldn't have saved my ghost," Jayesh replied softly. "They'd have all been dead together."

Cal tossed the ball up and down, staring at Jayesh. "Right. So. You don't defend yourself, but you resurrect your ghost, who then kills someone on your behalf. I'm trying to follow the logic, here."

Phoenix appeared in a swirl of blue Light. "I killed the Guardian who had been stalking us, and who had tried to kill us both. She was the threat, not the humans. She was hollow and rotten inside."

Cal's gaze sharpened. "Name?"

"Yaleesa. Void warlock."

Cal summoned his ghost and they murmured together. Jayesh waited, bouncing a ball and trying to catch it on his knee.

Cal turned back to them. "I thought the name sounded familiar. Yaleesa was one of the Shadows of Yor. Not these wannabes running around, calling themselves Dredgens. Real servants of Darkness. The Praxic Order was watching her, and we took note when she was killed. We were in charge of the investigation."

"I remember," Jayesh replied. "I filled out paperwork for days afterward."

"Wretched business, the Shadows," Cal said. "Humankind has always been drawn to the Darkness, rather than the Light. We're kin with it and we understand it. The Light? Alien. Frightening. Too difficult to learn."

Jayesh tossed him the ball. "That's why I went to the Traveler as a new Guardian. It bothered me that we know so little about the Light. And you know, now I know why. The Light demands righteousness and justice and - and morality. And those things are hard."

Cal nodded and tossed the ball back. "I've learned the same thing from my studies. I think that's why the Darkness remains such a threat. Why we're reduced to trying to weaponize it against itself. Because we'll never be able to fully embrace the Light. It has blessed our species, but we're half-Darkness, ourselves. Now, I think if we focused on truly learning the Light, the Darkness wouldn't stand a chance. But who can stand it? The shadows fall darkest behind a man in full sun."

"Now you're making me depressed," Jayesh said, catching the ball for once. He was going to say more, but a ship roared into the dock beside theirs, the engines an ear-splitting throb. It landed, cut the engines to a quarter, then powered down with a descending whine. Jayesh and Cal continued their practice without speaking, simply waiting for the noise to abate.

An Exo in Titan armor transmatted onto the neighboring dock in a flash of blue particles. He walked a few paces, then noticed the two warlocks playing catch. He pulled off his helmet and stood watching them. He was fierce-looking, with orange eyes and spikes all over his black metal head. But when he spoke, his voice was deep and cultured. "Have room for another?"

"Sure," said Cal, and tossed him a ball. The Exo caught it and threw it to Jayesh.

As Jayesh threw it to Cal, he said, "I'm Jayesh, and this is Cal."

"Charmed," the Exo replied. "I'm Grant-4."

Jayesh looked at him harder. "Oh really. You know Nell?"

Grant's metal face flexed a little in a smile. "Not as well as I should like. We are often opponents in certain games and have developed a rivalry. How do you know her?"

"She's been on my fireteam for a while," Jayesh said. "I can't tell if she likes you or hates you."

"That's hard to say," Grant replied, catching the ball as Cal tossed it. "We wind up killing each other multiple times. I feel guilty about having to slay such a beautiful fighter. She resurrects in fury. Glorious."

"I gather we're not talking about Crucible," Cal said.

Jayesh and Grant looked at him in silence.

"Hey, I understand," Cal said, gesturing to his black and yellow Praxic Order robes. "I can't participate because of work, but I follow the battle results. Your team beat Nell's last time."

Grant's eyes brightened. "Yes, we did. Her team swore eternal vengeance upon us. I am excited to see if they can pull it off."

They kept tossing the ball to each other, talking about Gambit without ever using its name. Jayesh found a tight, worried spot inside him beginning to relax. Grant was one of the top players, yet he talked about it in terms of scores and strategies, like any other game. No mention of turning to the Darkness or enjoying the slaughter of Guardians - at least, no more than any Crucible match. In fact, Grant was mostly interested in Nell and kept guiding the conversation back to her.

"Why don't you talk to her?" Jayesh said. "You know, outside of battle, when you're not trying to kill each other."

Grant looked down and shuffled his feet. "Well, I ... you see that I'm an Exo. I just don't know if a girl like her would ever see someone like me as a person and not just ... a thing."

"You ought to try," Jayesh said. "You'll never know, otherwise."

Cal chucked. "I wonder if certain people realize that their underground game has become a dating service."

"I'm sure that was not the intent," Grant agreed. "I'm afraid that I'm a very new Guardian, not even a year old, yet."

"Oh really?" Cal said. "Where'd your ghost find you?"

"In a ruined city far south of here," Grant said. "A kind woman with many ghosts had been protecting mine as she looked for me. This woman made sure that I was ferried to the Last City."

"Oh, I know Charon," Cal said. "She's doing a good thing. I think she's brought more Guardians to the Tower in the last year than we usually see in two or three."

"Yes," Grant said. "Charon. My ghost, Sentry, speaks highly of her. What do you think of your ghosts?"

"This is Phoenix," Jayesh said, nodding to the red and yellow robot hovering at his left shoulder. "He's my best friend."

Cal summoned his own ghost. "This is Tina. She's been my friend for a couple of centuries."

"Ah, good, good," Grant said. "Certain people who run certain games has told us not to trust our ghosts. He seems to despise his. This confused me, because most Guardians seem to love their ghosts. I thought perhaps I was wrong to be so fond of Sentry."

"He despises his?" Jayesh repeated. "How do you despise your own ghost? Ghosts are the best."

Grant caught the ball and tossed it to Jayesh. "He says that he often wished to die, yet his ghost wouldn't let him. He also saw ghosts develop bloodthirst along with their Risen. He called them tools, not friends ... I confess, I ... I left the room at that point. Sentry was upset."

"Tools," Phoenix said, very softly. Jayesh glanced up to see his ghost's blue eye shift to an angry red.

"Shh," Jayesh whispered, flinging the ball to Cal.

"Your ghost grows upset, too," Grant said, gesturing. "I've been so confused. It's hard to ask other Guardians these things without explaining certain games."

"You and your ghost are a unit," Cal said. "A warlord who slaughtered innocents, just because they could, spreads that same mentality to their ghost. By that measure, a kind person will have a kind ghost. A scholar will have an intelligent ghost, and so on."

"Are ... are they only tools, then?" Grant asked, missing the ball. It bounced off his forearm and rolled under the dock.

The three Guardians faced each other without the distraction of the game. "No," Cal said. "A ghost is a sentient being. They interface with machinery in service to us, but they have thoughts and feelings. And they can die. If the D - I mean, certain people have reduced their ghost to only being a tool, then he's cruelly mistreated it."

Grant slowly nodded. "Right. Right. I rather thought that, myself, but I truly know so little about Guardian culture. I feared I'd have to keep Sentry a secret." He held out a hand and summoned his ghost. She appeared in an expensive hexagonal shell with metallic blue and gold designs. She nodded politely to Jayesh and Cal, then gazed adoringly up at Grant. He smiled down at her. "This is my Sentry. She's such a good girl. So much more than a tool."

She flew to a ghost's spot above her Guardian's left shoulder, and Grant went in search of the lost ball.

Jayesh sat on a railing for a moment. Phoenix's rage blazed off him in waves of heat, warming Jayesh's face and shoulder.

"Calm down," Jayesh whispered.

"A tool," Phoenix muttered. "A _tool_, Jay."

It irritated Jayesh, too, but he knew better than to lose his temper. "Consider the source, Phoenix. Agree to disagree. We won't change his mind, especially not by getting mad."

The ghost flew in circles like an angry moth. "I don't want to see the Drifter again. And tomorrow -"

"Shh. I know. We'll just keep quiet about it."

At the other end of the dock, Cal checked the time. "That's all I can do today. Another class at the end of the week?"

"Sure," Jayesh said. "More Light practice?"

Cal squinted at him. "We'll appraise your condition in a few days. I'll decide then. Get lots of rest."

"I'll try."

Grant reappeared with the missing ball. Cal retrieved it and left with his equipment.

Grant gazed after him, forlorn. "We're done already?"

"I guess so," Jayesh replied. "That was training, believe it or not."

Grant blinked his orange eyes a few times, then shrugged. "Thanks for the game and conversation. Both were refreshing."

"I'm thinking of playing certain games," Jayesh said. "I'm going to observe the next one to see how it works."

Grant brightened. "Really! Excellent. You'll likely start in the lowest bracket and work your way up. It's organized quite well. We likely wouldn't share a team or a match unless you won several games in a row."

"I don't know enough to even guess how I'd do," Jayesh said. "Is it true that Guardians get addicted to it?"

Grant folded his arms and gazed across the hanger. After a moment, he said, "You mean invading. That is the biggest downside. Because it's fun. The portal gives you a power rush, and ... I can't describe it. You want to do it again and again. But lately I've grown suspicious of such things. I've been studying a bit about the powers at work in our world, and no Light powers do what that portal does. I'm not certain how much longer I'll play."

"That does scare me," Jayesh admitted. "But you're a top invader, and you're not addicted, right?"

Grant drummed his fingers against his arm. "I can't entirely deny it. Again, that is why I am wary. I have no wish to be enslaved to anything. And I question the Drifter, himself. Everyone has secrets, naturally, but he has lived so long, his secrets run deep." He shrugged and gave Jayesh a grin, which shifted the angles of his face and narrowed his orange eyes. "What can I say? I play to see Nell."

"I'll sound her out," Jayesh promised. "She might be willing to talk to you outside of the game."

"I'd be much obliged," Grant said with a short bow. "If you'll excuse me ..."

They parted ways. Jayesh walked to the hanger entrance and stood watching the rain outside. It had turned the mountains outside the City into the merest gray outlines.

"I've been running from paper tigers, Phoenix," Jayesh said quietly, leaning on a railing. "I don't think Gambit is what it's been made out to be."

"I think you're right," Phoenix agreed. "I mean, the potential for corruption is there. But Shin Malphur said it straight out - if a man is already bent toward evil, playing a game will only reveal it."

Jayesh stood there for a while, thinking through Gambit, along with a host of other worries, like whether to introduce Nell to Grant-4, and wondering how Kari was feeling.

"Phoenix," he said suddenly, "what happened to that gun that Malphur gave us?"

"It's still on your ship, as far as I know," Phoenix replied. "You passed out and never went back for it."

"I need to have the Praxic order lock it up." Jayesh stood and hurried back across the hanger to where his ship stood among a fleet of others. He climbed inside and opened the weapon locker behind the pilot seat. There was the bone-studded hand cannon, still wrapped in a spare cloak. Jayesh lifted it carefully. "We should just destroy it."

"Does it whisper?" Phoenix asked, scanning the bundle.

Jayesh sat still, listening. But after a few minutes, all he heard was the distant patter of rain on the hanger roof. He shook his head. "Maybe it works off skin contact."

"Wasn't the original Thorn purified?" Phoenix asked. "Maybe we could purify this one, too."

"I'll have to find out how it was done," Jayesh said. "Or maybe ... just destroy it."

He climbed down from his ship and headed out of the hanger, pulling up his collar against the rain. But he wore no helmet, and his hair was immediately slicked flat by heavy raindrops. Phoenix vanished.

By the time Jayesh reached the Praxic Order's little tower, far down the wall, he was drenched and beginning to shiver. He entered and stood dripping on the threshold.

As before, the warlocks working at the various desks looked up with baleful stares. But most of their ire was directed at a hunter standing in front of one of the desks. Jayesh startled - Shin Malphur was here? - then realized that this was a stranger.

A free warlock waved Jayesh forward. "What do you need?"

He set the wrapped gun on the desk. "I need to commit this to a special weapons locker."

The warlock lifted the bundle, unwrapped it, and glanced inside. His eyes bulged. He hastily covered it again and leaped to his feet. "Right away." The warlock almost sprinted from the room.

Jayesh stood there, wondering what he'd gotten himself into, and why Malphur had given him that weapon in the first place. He found himself studying the hunter.

The hunter's cloak and hood were just as soaked as Jayesh's robes, but they seemed to have protected him from the elements. The hunter's hood was pushed back, revealing a young man with sandy blond hair. His eyes were green-brown, and studied Jayesh with a bright, lively interest. His ghost floated beside him in a Vanguard city shell, red with a laurel wreath across the compass points. When the hunter had to turn back to the desk to attend to a warlock speaking to him, his ghost continued to study Jayesh.

Every so often, Jayesh had the odd experience of seeing someone he was certain he would be friends with, if he could only contrive to talk to them. This was one of those times. Who was this hunter?

Jayesh's warlock returned, looking pale. "The weapon is interred safely, sir. How did you acquire it?"

Jayesh explained about meeting the rogue guardians. He also had to answer a lot of questions about his mental health and whether he heard voices. This was muddied by his psychic damage diagnosis.

By the time the warlock was satisfied that the weapon had done no harm to Jayesh, the hunter had left, and the rain had stopped. Disappointed, Jayesh stepped outside. "I wanted to talk to that guy, Phoenix."

The sun shone warm and strong through the clouds. Jayesh stood and basked in it for a long moment before entering the sharp wind that had picked up along the top of the wall.

He was thinking quite hard about dry clothes and socks when a voice said, "Hey."

The hunter had hung around in the shelter of a ruined guard tower further along the wall. He emerged from a sunny spot and held out a hand, grinning. "I'm Charles. Had to get out of there so I wouldn't eavesdrop."

"Nothing much to overhear," Jayesh said, shaking his hand. "I'm Jayesh."

There was that feeling of connection again - as if Jayesh had once known Charles, perhaps in his past life. It was so strong that Jayesh said, "Do I know you?"

"I don't think so," Charles laughed. "My wife and I were refugees, trying to reach the Last City. I got killed on the way, but Wand, here, found me." He held a hand beneath the red-shelled ghost, who emoted a smile.

"So you're a baby Guardian, like me," Jayesh said.

"You, too?" Charles exclaimed. "That's excellent. I'm embarrassingly green. Maybe I can ask you my dumb questions."

"Ask away," Jayesh laughed. "I've got to head home for now, but tomorrow, I'm free. Might take my toddler out for a run."

"Mine's crawling," Charles said. "I know my wife could use a break, too."

Jayesh snapped his fingers. "That's it! Our wives know each other. Kari and Naomi?"

"I'll be damned," Charles said. "Small world. Let's hang out tomorrow, then."

They walked back along the wall together, talking and laughing. Charles knew nothing of Jayesh's reputation and hadn't judged him in advance, as so many older guardians did. The last person Jayesh had known like that had been Prince Uldren. But one did not try to stay friends with the dangerous fugitive Prince.

Jayesh arrived home in a much brighter state of mind than he'd had in weeks. Kari sensed it at once. He'd had a good day, and he was more normal than he'd been since he'd returned from the Dreaming City. He rested and played with Connor to keep him out from under Kari's feet.

That evening, Kari found Jayesh at his desk, studying his tablet and taking notes, as he had done before being injured. It made her happy.

Kari slipped her arms around his neck from behind and kissed his cheek. "What're you reading?"

"How to purify a weapon of sorrow," Jayesh said, as if this was the most common topic in the world.

Kari blinked at his tablet and notebooks. "Why are you studying that?"

"Shin Malphur unloaded one on me," Jayesh said. "The Praxic Order have it locked up while I do more research."

Kari ran her fingers through his hair. "You're supposed to rest."

He smiled and kissed her cheek. "This is the most rested I've been in days. Don't worry about me, lovelight. Tomorrow I have my little appointment with the Drifter. Then I'm taking Connor on a play date to let you rest."

"That sounds wonderful," Kari said. "A play date with who?"

Jayesh described Charles. Kari was delighted. "I met Naomi, she's wonderful. I'm so glad you hit it off with her husband. You need more friends."

Jayesh leaned his head against hers for a moment. "I'm not the only one who needs to rest. You're incubating a new little one."

Kari sighed and sat on the arm of his chair. "I know, and the fatigue is starting to hit me. The morning sickness will follow, I guess. I need you back."

He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her into his lap. "I'm on the road back. A few more days like today and I'll be one hundred percent in no time."

She nuzzled his forehead. "My Sunsinger."

For a moment, Jayesh's expression grew shadowed as the memory of his injury returned. Then it cleared and he smiled. "That's right. And you're my Stormcaller."

She bent over him and kissed him.


	5. Chapter 5: Bank those motes

The Drifter's ship was a mid-sized cruiser called the Derelict. It dragged a huge ball of an icy substance behind it - Jayesh couldn't identify it. The Drifter only called it The Haul and laughed.

The Drifter's ship was freezing cold inside, perhaps due to the Haul's proximity. Jayesh wore an enviro-suit under his robes, and still began to lose feeling in his feet by the end of the first Gambit match. He and the Drifter sat at a bank of screens, watching the Martian arenas from every angle. The Drifter had a battered keyboard in front of him, inputting transmat commands to send enemies to the arena.

"Look at 'em go, brother," the Drifter said, grinning at the screens. "Guardians are so good at killing, I have to send out teams to catch enemies alive for the games. Problems we have at the top, eh?"

Jayesh watched Nell in one arena and Grant-4 in the other, working to gather motes from fallen enemies. Nell was slightly faster, which was no surprise. She was reckless and deadly in battle.

The Drifter pointed at one of the players who was flagged as carrying fifteen motes. "Bank those motes!" he exclaimed into his microphone. "You're killing me, here!"

The player did, opening the invasion portal. Nell dashed for it and jumped through.

"Invader on the field!" the Drifter said with glee. He rubbed his hands together and leaned toward Jayesh. "Now you'll really see something."

Nell emerged from the portal on the other side cloaked in red-tinged Darkness. Jayesh almost didn't recognize her - she looked like one more Taken. But Nell was far deadlier. While most invaders preferred to snipe from a distance, Nell ran in and attacked other players from behind with her knives.

"Whisper-quiet assassinations," the Drifter remarked. "No gunfire to mark her location. There's a reason so many teams want her." He flicked on his mic. "Your invader's back, and she wiped the whole team!"

Nell's team cheered.

On the other side, the other team resurrected, their body language vengeful. They resumed fighting enemies for motes, as death had erased every mote they'd been carrying.

"They'll have their portal open in a minute," the Drifter told Jayesh, grinning and rocking a little in his chair. "Wait'll you see the Exo in action."

Jayesh leaned forward, scanning the screens. "Each team only gets two chances to invade?"

"Right, brother. Until the Primeval drops, that is. Then the portal opens quick." The Drifter scanned Jayesh. "Want to play yet?"

Jayesh shrugged. It did look fun, but that Taken energy ...

"Here we go!" the Drifter exclaimed, slapping a hand on his thigh. "Invader incoming! Watch your back!" He flicked off the mic and grinned at the screens.

Grant-4 emerged on Nell's side and immediately ignited his supercharge, wreathing himself in lightning. The Titan soared skyward, described a perfect arc, and fell like an electrified missile right into the middle of the opposing team. Bodies cartwheeled.

A Taken using a Light supercharge was one of the most terrifying sights Jayesh had ever seen.

But Grant had missed one enemy. As he picked himself up from the small crater he'd made, Nell sprang out from behind a rock, caught him around the neck, and applied her knife to his throat.

The Drifter whistled through his teeth, pressing buttons. "Not bad, three kills!" Then, to the other team, "Invader's down! Your teammate's a hero!" He worked the transmat to ship Grant back to the other side for resurrection, cackling all the while. "Did you see that, brother? Hit 'em like a Dark-bleeding missile and Nell still got him. These teams, man, these teams."

Jayesh was beginning to understand why Nell disliked Grant. As the match went on, the two hunted each other personally across the arenas, sometimes bypassing easier kills in order to take the other one down. And once the Primevals appeared, Nell and Grant invaded so often, their teams had to fight the monster without them.

Grant's team killed their Primeval half a second before Nell's team. The Drifter cheered and pounded the table. Then he transmatted both teams back to the ship for round two. He went out to give them a pep talk. Jayesh stayed in the control room, listening to the hooting and jeering from the two teams, with the Drifter talking over them.

The transmats fired, sending the teams back to the arenas. The Drifter returned, chuckling. "Little Nell is out for blood now. She'll be one of my next Dredgens, I'm sure of it."

"What's that entail?" Jayesh asked. "Do they have to go out and build weapons of sorrow?"

The Drifter chuckled. "No, no, brother. They just perform well in Gambit. Certain scores across the board. Lots of invasions."

Jayesh nodded. They watched the screens as the teams furiously raced to collect motes and open their portals. As Nell charged through the portal and the Drifter called an alert to the other team, Jayesh pointed. "That, right there. Is she really Taken?"

"No," the Drifter said with a grin. "Guardians can't be Taken. You're a warlock. You should know that."

Jayesh's face warmed. "What's going on, then? She looks Taken."

"The portal gives an energy rush," the Drifter explained. "It don't last long. But guardians are addicted to power, so I arranged for them to feel powerful. Any other Joe Shmoe jumps through there, sure, they'll get Taken. Ain't got no Light to pay with. Guardians, though? Paying a tiny bit of Light don't bother them."

Jayesh watched in silence as the game went on, until the teams summoned their Primevals. Then he said, "Where do those come from?"

"Got 'em in the Haul," the Drifter replied. "Oldest Taken I could find."

Jayesh studied him, his scarred face and Lightless eyes. "You're saying you just go out and catch Taken?"

"Naw," the Drifter said, leaning back in his chair. "Ain't no need to catch Taken. You call them. Bait 'em. They're predictable in some ways - can't resist a good feed. Then once they show up -" He interlocked his fingers like a bear trap closing. "Snap. Got 'em. Kill 'em over and over, doesn't bother them much. They get fed, they don't care. The Darkness doesn't care. Neither does the Light."

Jayesh sensed he was being led and didn't reply.

Nell's team killed their Primeval first. The Drifter worked the transmat controls. "Headed into an overtime match! One more kill, you got it!" He dropped a new Primeval on both sides and sat back to watch.

Both teams fought with fury, but Nell's team was slightly better coordinated. They killed their Primeval seconds before Grant's team. The Drifter cheered before turning his mic back on. "Bringing you all back. Time to get paid."

Jayesh lurked in the background as the Drifter weighed out glimmer to the winning team. The losing team were paid by how many motes they had gathered, which turned out to be a substantial amount.

Nell spotted Jayesh and made her way to him through the crowd. "Hey Jayesh! He let you observe?"

"He did," Jayesh said, slapping her on the back. "Great job out there."

Nell's black hair was damp with sweat, her armor splattered with blood from so many kills and deaths. She pulled a cloth from her belt and began cleaning her daggers. "Great match. Touch and go for a while, there. Think you'll sign up?"

"I might play a few games," Jayesh admitted. "Beginner's bracket and all."

"Excellent!" Nell elbowed him. "You get your Light back?"

"I'm working on it."

"You get it back, you'll be a beast out there. Madrid and I were talking about what a badass you are in a fight. Get good and I call dibs on you for my team. Okay? Okay."

This casual praise warmed Jayesh right through. He stood there, speechless, as Nell turned to her teammates and introduced them.

"This is Cidrex, our crazy hunter. He kills stuff point blank with a sniper rifle. This is Liran, our warlock. She's evil. Right, Liran?"

The Awoken woman twirled Malfeasance in one hand and didn't reply.

"And this is Nessa," Nell continued, waving to an Awoken hunter. "She never gets hit. Well, usually. Then there's me. Champion invader."

"Humble brag much?" Jayesh said.

"Always," Nell grinned.

Nessa prodded Nell's shoulder. "Grant's watching you."

Nell spun around to glare at the other team, who were clustered around the Drifter. Grant-4 stood a little apart, his orange eyes fixed on Nell in an inscrutable expression. Jayesh recognized it as Grant trying to build up the nerve to talk to Nell. But Nell took it as a threat.

"Oh, I hate him so much," Nell muttered to her team and Jayesh. "He wiped our team twice today. _Twice_."

"Better watch out," Cidrex told her. "One of these days he'll catch you in the Tower with your ghost vulnerable. Then there'll only be one top invader."

"You think so?" Nell exclaimed. "Traveler's crack! If he so much as looks at Hadrian, I'll scatter his parts from here to the sun."

"I don't think so," Jayesh began, but he was drowned out by the Drifter.

"All right, all right, all right! Next round's Nessus! Clear out, you lot, I've got the newbie brackets to run."

The Guardians transmatted to their ships in a hurricane of light and disturbed air. In a second, only Jayesh was still standing there.

The Drifter glanced at him. "Observing another round?"

"Sign me up for next week," Jayesh said.

The Drifter broke into a huge grin. "All right! Got lots of beginner slots. Don't want to smoke you too bad, right?"

Jayesh put his name down on the brief entrance form the Drifter used. Then he transmatted back to his jumpship.

"It does look fun," Phoenix admitted as he calculated a course for Earth. "What happens to the ghost during an invasion?"

"We'll have to ask Nell," Jayesh said. "For a top invader, she still seems pretty normal. Or as normal as Nell ever is."

"I feel sorry for Grant, though," Phoenix said. "She's scared of him, so she won't let him get near."

"I blame her teammates," Jayesh muttered. "I'll have a word with her back at the Tower. For now, I get to head home and be a dad."

Phoenix twirled his shell. "I love watching you be a dad."

* * *

Jayesh met Charles down in the City Lake District, at a park that had play equipment for toddlers. The first thing the toddlers wanted were the swings, which came equipped with safety seats.

"Busy morning," Charles said, his posture open and friendly, hazel eyes bright. "Had to patrol outside the walls. Found something weird by the south gate, had to call the Praxic Order."

"What do you mean, something weird?" Jayesh asked, pushing a giggling Connor.

"Some kind of camp," Charles said, gently swinging his own son, Reuben. "Couldn't tell if it was human or Fallen. Sure had a lot of metal and bone and crap. The Warlocks firebombed the whole place."

"Bone?" Jayesh said, stiffening. "Animal bone?"

"Alien, I think," Charles said. "Lots of little pieces. Hard to tell, really. I had to report to Ikora about it. Do you know she runs some kind of spy network?"

"The Hidden," Jayesh said, mental gears turning. "So ... you found somebody's hideout. Did they find out whose it was?"

Charles shrugged. "They burned the whole camp without checking for clues. But I had the impression that Ikora had suspicions. You ever meet the Praxic Order? They're scary."

"I've had dealings with them," Jayesh replied. "You're right - scary. I saw you in there."

"Yesterday, right," Charles laughed. "They had me plant listening devices around the Drifter's room downstairs. A lot of good it'll do them. What you see is what you get with the Drifter. Ever play his little game?"

"Just got back from observing, actually," Jayesh said. "Looks about as harmless as Crucible."

Charles shrugged. "I don't play either, so I wouldn't know. I'm Tower-bound, so I get the dirty internal jobs."

"Tower-bound? Why?"

Charles ruffled his son's hair. "I promised my wife I wouldn't leave her and Reuben and go traipsing around the stars. She was so scared of me after I became a Guardian. Anyway. I do patrols, but I'm also the local gofer. Go for this, go for that. Lick boots in the Praxic Order. Clean up the mess the Gensym Scribes leave behind in their lab. Make sure the Stoneborn have enough booze. You know."

Jayesh laughed. "They keep you hopping."

"What do you do, then?" Charles said. "You're a warlock, right? Do you, like, spend all your time reading books about arcane theory when you're not blowing stuff up?"

Jayesh explained about being a warlock and constantly studying the Light in an attempt to grow stronger. "I use the same weapons as everybody else - rifles and handguns and so on. The old Hunter Vanguard was always after me to switch to being a hunter. Sometimes I wish I'd taken him up on it."

"There was a Hunter Vanguard?" Charles said, settling his weight on one leg. "I thought it was just Ikora and Zavala. Hunters don't strike me as the type to work a desk job."

"His name was Cayde-6," Jayesh said with a sad smile. "Great guy. Everybody loved him. But he was murdered out in the Reef. I helped avenge him, but ... he's still gone. And nobody wants his job."

"Huh," Charles said. "That explains it. I've had to pick up training on the fly, whenever somebody's around to show me how things work. I have this lightning staff I can summon. But how do I practice with something that dangerous? And what else can I do? I don't even know."

Jayesh found himself educating the hunter on his own Light powers. Jayesh had worked with enough hunters to know the basics, and Charles was hungry for knowledge. He actually backed away a short distance and summoned his arc staff to demonstrate. Connor and Reuben watched, their eyes round with awe and excitement.

"Trying to stay in practice," Charles said, whipping the staff around in a figure eight. "Great workout. Have to be strong enough to fight the Fallen if they show up." He let his staff fizzle and vanish, then returned to the swings.

The conversation turned to other topics after that. Jayesh didn't bother talking about his own feeble Light. He told Charles funny stories of things he'd seen on the other planets and moons. They commiserated about married life and caring for small children.

When the boys tired of the swings, their fathers let them loose in the playground. Connor ran about, shouting to his ghost. Charles put Reuben on a play set and watched him closely, since Reuben was only crawling.

"Play any instruments?" Charles asked suddenly.

Jayesh shook his head. "I don't think so."

"I had to leave my guitar behind when the Fallen sacked our town," Charles said. "Almost the first thing I bought when we got here was a new guitar. Wand, transmat it."

His ghost transmatted an acoustic guitar into Charles's outstretched hands. Charles donned the shoulder strap and strummed a chord.

Jayesh's entire being fixated on the sound. For a second he stood frozen, feeling the chord's fading vibrations in the air. Charles played another, and Jayesh heard it, felt it, saw it.

"You all right?" Charles said, placing a hand against the strings to stop the sound.

Jayesh shook himself a little. "That was ... wow." He tried to get a grip on whatever strange reaction he'd just had. "Let's sit down. Know many songs?"

"Lots," Charles said, scooping up Reuben and tucking him under one arm.

Jayesh made sure he was sitting on a park bench before Charles started playing. As soon as the first chord began, Jayesh's senses were drowned in synesthesia. He saw the music as colors, tasted it as sweet and bitter, smelled it as coffee and mint, felt it as rough and smooth. He struggled to master it. Why this music? Why this guitar?

Charles stopped playing and Jayesh snapped awake. "You all right?" Charles said in concern. "Looks like you're dozing off."

"No, it's ..." Jayesh was at a loss to describe it. "My Light ... I'm a Sunsinger. I think it's made me hear music differently."

Charles looked at him a moment. Then he pulled off the shoulder strap and passed the guitar to Jayesh. "Here. I'll teach you to play."

Jayesh took the instrument reverently, afraid that he might break it, somehow. Charles showed him a couple of basic chord positions. Pressing the metal strings against the fret board was harder than it looked. Jayesh strummed the strings.

The reaction wasn't as strong when he was the one playing - badly. But he still experienced each note with all his senses until he was nearly blind with it. He kept having to stop and let the world return to focus.

He'd lost track of time, so when Connor appeared and said, "Hungry, Daddy!" Jayesh was astonished to see that it was nearly five PM. He returned Charles's guitar. "I'm going to have to learn to play," he said. "Mind teaching me?"

"No problem," Charles said. "You can dig up more stuff on hunter powers and teach me. I need to know it all."

They transmatted back to the Tower and took their little ones home. Kari had used her free afternoon to deep-clean the entire apartment. Floor, walls, windows, and furniture were all sparkling clean. Connor immediately ran to his room, where all his toys were newly organized.

"Thanks for the break," Kari said, hugging Jayesh. "It was such a relief to really clean this place." She studied his face and brushed back his hair. "How're you feeling?"

"All right," Jayesh said, pulling her close. He held her a moment , trying to figure out how to describe his reaction to music. "Charles is going to teach me to play the guitar. I feel like ... it's going to help my Light, somehow."

"That's wonderful!" Kari exclaimed. "Come on, let's eat dinner and you can tell me about it."

So he told her about Charles, and then about Gambit and the Drifter. Kari was dubious about Gambit, but curious, too. "It actually sounds fun. Crucible does get old after a while."

"I'll give it a try," Jayesh said. "Quick way to earn some glimmer. I'll pick up some patrols next week, too."

Kari gazed at him a long moment from across the table. "You're getting well. Your eyes are so much brighter."

"Good," Jayesh said firmly. "I can't afford to be sick any more."

But if he was getting well, why did music affect his senses so strongly? He didn't know how to talk about it, and it troubled him.


	6. Chapter 6: Intent to kill

Nell sat on a rooftop high above the Tower Wall, up beneath an awning. She was invisible there in the half-light that filtered through the canvas. It was hot, there, too, but she was willing to put up with it for the sake of seeing without being seen.

"No sign of Grant-4," her ghost told her. "He's probably on an assignment somewhere."

Nell didn't answer, only tightened her grip on the awning pole beside her.

"Nell," Hadrian said hesitantly. "I don't think Grant honestly means you harm."

"He killed me so many times in that last match," Nell muttered. "Only him. I'm starting to have nightmares about those orange eyes coming for me."

Hadrian floated beside her in his plain shell painted with red and blue geometric shapes. He gave her an anxious look. "We should lay off Gambit for a while."

"No!" Nell exclaimed. "I'm making more off my winnings than the Vanguard pays for three missions combined. And my team needs me."

"But ... nightmares ..."

"I'll settle with him outside of Gambit. That's all." Nell held up a knife as proof.

Hadrian gave her a long, troubled look. "Killing someone outside of the games isn't right, Nell."

"He's a guardian," Nell said. "He'll resurrect. I just want to send him a message. Make him quit Gambit."

They watched the usual foot traffic milling by below. Grant hadn't appeared all day, even though his ship was in the hanger.

"Ping from Jayesh," Hadrian said. "He wants to hang out."

Nell sighed. "I don't want to hang with Jayesh. I'm hunting."

"It's been hours," Hadrian pointed out. "Jayesh is offering to buy lunch."

Nell wavered. She was growing hungry, and the prospect of free food was too good to pass up. "All right, fine. Let me know if Grant shows up."

"Right," Hadrian agreed.

Nell slithered out from under the awning and crossed three roofs to the set of pipes she had climbed. As she swung down them, a passing hunter paused to watch. "I'm going to try that," he said with a wink.

"Great hiding places up there," Nell told him, stepping onto the pavement.

She found Jayesh out at the cafe, equipped with two long sandwiches. He looked up from his tablet as she approached. "There you are! I thought I was going to have to dangle a carrot on a stick under your nose."

"A sandwich is better than a carrot," Nell said, cracking it open to examine the contents. Pickled beef - her favorite. "Why're you out here without Kari?"

"She took Connor to a friend's," Jayesh said. "I'm up for a Gambit match next week, and I hoped you'd give me some tips."

Nell lit up. She proceeded to give him tips for the next fifteen minutes. Jayesh listened carefully and tapped out notes on his tablet.

Eventually, Nell wound down and attacked her sandwich. Jayesh worked on his own, and they said nothing for a while. Nell studied him. His eyes were brighter, but there was a certain slow weariness to his movements that had accompanied him from the Dreaming City. It was as if he had forgotten he was ill, yet the illness continued to drag at him.

"Can you talk to the Traveler?" she asked.

Jayesh shook his head.

So he wasn't well. Nell glanced at the notes on his tablet. "Dude, Jay, don't play Gambit until you're well. Those guys will steamroll you."

"I'm better than I was," he said defensively. "And Light powers aren't necessary to shoot aliens and bank motes."

"They are if you invade," Nell retorted. "You gotta have your Light for that."

"Speaking of invaders," Jayesh said, "we need to talk about Grant-4."

Nell bristled. "What about him? That he enjoys killing me? That he has it out for me, personally? That he'll try to kill my ghost?"

"No," Jayesh said. "None of that. I think he has a crush on you."

Nell laughed incredulously. "He's a _robot_. They don't crush on people."

"He's an Exo," Jayesh countered. "A human mind in a robot shell. I know he's scary-looking. But I've talked to him here in the Tower. He's a good guy. I think you should get to know him."

"No way," Nell replied. "Jayesh, look, you're still sick. Your judgment is off. Exos don't develop feelings for people. They just kill."

"That's really racist," Jayesh said. "What about Cayde-6?"

Nell shut up, remembering Cayde. His constant string of little jokes during her training had made her forget that he was a robot at all. She didn't count him as an Exo in her head because he'd been her friend.

"Cayde was different," she said at last. "He didn't personally kill me a zillion times."

Jayesh sighed. "What you're saying is, you're scared of Grant."

"I'm not scared of him!" Nell insisted. "I've killed him a zillion times, too. I just think he's lying to you to take me out for good."

"And I think your team has made you afraid of him," Jayesh retorted.

"Don't diss my team," Nell snapped. "Look, Jay, you're not part of Gambit culture. You can't possibly understand. The game doesn't end when the primeval drops."

Jayesh gazed at her a long moment with a troubled expression.

Nell pointed at him. "Don't look at me like that. I know what I'm talking about. You don't even have your sword anymore, so how do you know if somebody is good or evil? Anybody can act nice and be a creep on the inside. Grant's out to kill me. Full stop."

Jayesh bristled. "This isn't about me. Grant's not what you think he is. You don't have to be afraid of him."

Nell stood up. "I know exactly what Grant is like. I'd rather put a knife in his ghost than spend any time with him."

Jayesh was aghast. "Nell! Listen to yourself! A knife in his ghost?"

Nell whirled and stalked away. "I'm done," she said over her shoulder. She didn't want to rage at Jayesh, but she was approaching that point very quickly.

She climbed to a different point on the roof and sat in the shade of an overhang, twirling a knife and brooding.

"Nell," Hadrian said softly.

Nell didn't answer. She was furious - but whether she was angry at Jayesh or herself, she didn't know. Feelings seethed inside her.

"Is it possible?" she blurted. "That Grant-4 has a crush on me?"

"It would make some of his recent behavior make sense," Hadrian said. "He appears to harbor intense feelings for you, but whether hatred or love, I can't tell."

"Feelings," Nell muttered. "Exos don't -" She broke off and bit her tongue. Cayde had had feelings. He was the only Exo she'd known well at all, and his death was still a lonely place in her soul.

She didn't want to get to know Grant, didn't want to deal with him having a crush on her. And how did she know Jayesh was right? His mind was damaged. His Light was broken. Grant could have tricked him. Pretend to have feelings for Nell so Jayesh would get involved. Then Grant would corner Nell somewhere and murder her.

"Hadrian," she said very quietly, "if I do kill Grant ... the Vanguard will punish me, right?"

"Yes," Hadrian replied. "Light, Nell. What's happening to you? You're planning murder. And we have no proof that Grant means us any harm."

"No," Nell said slowly. "And it's not easy to kill somebody's ghost. What I need is one of those bone weapons. The ones that put out Light. What're they called?"

"A weapon of sorrow?" Hadrian gasped. "Oh no, Nell, please don't."

"Not saying I will," Nell said. "I don't even know how to get one. But if the next Gambit match goes the way the last one did ... I may look into it."

"Nell," Hadrian whispered. A feeling of sickness shivered through him. "Please ... don't. It's not worth it."

Nell didn't answer, just crossed the roof and jumped down to the walk, headed for the stairs to the dormitories. Inside, she was still a mass of confused feelings, and she wanted to hide indoors for a while and calm down.

* * *

"After this next match, I'm quitting Gambit," Grant-4 told his ghost.

He had spent most of the day in his quarters, his mechanical body dressed only in shorts, gazing out his small window at the Last City. He'd sat there for hours without moving, chin resting on his folded arms. His ghost, Sentry, had phased and left him to his thoughts.

Now, as the sun sank behind the Traveler, Grant broke his long silence. Sentry appeared beside him, her blue and gold shell flashing in the low light.

"Quitting?" she said, her soft voice concerned. "But you're one of the top-ranked invaders!"

"I know," Grant said, his orange eyes half-closed. "But I don't like what it's doing to me. It's made Nell afraid to interact with me. I don't want to be a monster." He opened one metal hand and gazed at it. "Even though I rather resemble one."

Sentry flew around in front of him to meet his eyes. "You're not a monster, Grant. You're an Exo. A wonderful extension of a human life."

"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen my dreams," he said, sitting up. "Always the crypt, always murdering everyone I know. When I play Gambit, and I invade ... I'm acting out those dreams. I don't like it. I'm a Titan, Sentry. I took an oath to protect the City and the Traveler. Killing other guardians is ... making me break those vows."

Sentry gazed at him a moment, her shell ticking back and forth in thought. Then she said, "Do what you think is right, dear Guardian. I'm right here with you."

Grant ran his fingertips over her shell. "Thanks for understanding, little guard." He stood and stretched, his fibers and joints creaking. "I wish I hadn't signed up for this next match, but it's too late to back out now. I do wish the Drifter would pit me against someone besides Nell. It breaks my heart to have to kill her." He hesitated and looked at his ghost. "Do I have a heart? Can I say that?"

"You have two," Sentry replied. "They function differently from a human heart, but add extra redundancy for greater survivability."

Grant touched his bare metal chest. "Two hearts. Surely that's enough to love someone."

"But what if she can't love you?" Sentry murmured. "What if she rejects your advances?"

Grant gazed out the window again, watching the last of the sunset fading into dusk. "Then I'll at least know that I have the capacity for complex emotion. And ... I might attempt to become drunk."

Sentry flew up and leaned her shell against the metal plate that composed his cheekbone. "I can't heal a broken heart," she whispered. "Please, just let Nell go."

Grant drew himself up, straightening his posture. "That's why I'm quitting Gambit. She shall go her way, and I shall go mine. But maybe ... someday ..." He let the sentence hang, unfinished.

Grant returned to his seat at the window. This time, Sentry floated close beside him, worrying in silence.

* * *

"Jayesh?"

He swam up from the depths of a dream about wandering the forest around the Shard of the Traveler. Kari was bending over him. He slowly sat up and realized he'd fallen asleep at his desk. He'd put on headphones to listen to acoustic guitar music from the Archives. As before, the melody had drowned his senses. He pulled off the headphones and rubbed a cramp from his neck.

"Are you all right?" Kari said, lifting the headset to one ear. Soothing guitar chords still played inside. Even that small, distant amount seemed to ripple with blue and purple.

Jayesh clicked the music off. "I'm fine. It's just ... too relaxing."

Kari took his face in both hands and studied his eyes. He gazed back, seeing the concern in her warm, brown eyes. And really, he felt fine, if a little disoriented from waking up so suddenly.

"Well, come to bed," Kari said, smoothing one of his eyebrows with her thumb. "It's after eleven."

He followed her to bed, snuggled up to her, and roamed the strange spaces inside his mind. The Shard of the Traveler was there, surrounded by dead trees and blue flowers. Not like the metaphysical forest of star trees. This was like a faint echo, a picture of himself, wandering, lost, calling to the Traveler and hearing himself silenced.

"Traveler," he called with his feeble Light. "I'm here. Please don't shut me out."

No answer. No extra touch of Light. He waded through blue flowers, running his hands over their strange glowing buds. Then he laid his hands on the Shard itself, and it was cold. It gnawed his skin and made his bones ache.

"We're cut off," he said to Phoenix. In the dream, Phoenix wore a basic ghost shell, much weathered and scratched.

"We haven't found our song," Phoenix replied. "We have to go deeper." He flew into the Shard and disappeared.

Jayesh pushed after him and fell into a pool of blue Light. It felt neither hot nor cold, neither wet nor dry. He could still breathe. "Where is the song?" he said, the Light rippling around him.

"Deeper," Phoenix said from below.

Jayesh dove deeper into the Light. The whisper of a song touched his ears. He swam deeper, tracking it, hungry for it.

He reached the bottom, and it was full of waving blue flowers. Lying among them was a hand cannon studded with bone. The song came from it.

Jayesh recoiled. "No! This is wrong!"

The dream changed, the Light warping away into darkness, the flowers changing to black and red nightmare shapes. Jayesh stood in the Black Garden, surrounded by miles of black flowers, an unearthly light falling upon the disturbing shape of a flat mountain in the distance.

"Phoenix," Jayesh said in despair. "Why can't I find my Light? Why am I here? Am I doomed?"

His ghost flew to him, slow and tired. "I'm so lost, Jay. I don't know anymore. Please, let's just go home."

Jayesh awoke to find his ghost beside his head on the pillow. His eye was extinguished, but his voice kept speaking in Jayesh's mind. "I don't want these dreams. I don't want Darkness. I'm so tired of lies. Let's just be. Maybe the Light will find us again."

"Or maybe it won't," Jayesh thought. "Maybe we'll be lost in the twilight forever. And why are we sharing dreams?"

Phoenix's eye snapped on. He blinked at Jayesh from an inch away. "We're sharing dreams? Oh, Light. What's that mean?"

Jayesh cupped a hand around the ghost. "It means we're both still sick."

"I want to be well," Phoenix muttered. "No more of this nonsense about bone weapons and gardens and trees."

"I'm not using a weapon of sorrow to become a Sunsinger," Jayesh thought. "Never."

"Never," Phoenix agreed.

Jayesh buried his face in Kari's hair and sank back into sleep. But this time, he dreamed of playing Gambit. His teammates were all Taken, and he couldn't tell which were friends and which were foes.

"That's part of the challenge, brother!" the Drifter said in his ear. "Never do know who's on your side. Have to risk it."

Through it all ran the music he couldn't quite hear. He chased it from dream to dream all night all night long, and awoke exhausted in the morning.

That day he ran a patrol around the outside of the City walls. It was a windy, sunny day, and fighting his sparrow in the wind forced him to think about other things. It was the time of year when the Fallen withdrew from most combat for their breeding season, so the patrol was uneventful.

Jayesh found the burned camp outside the south gate. It had been concealed in a hollow in the ground - Charles must have been very observant. Now it was a blackened crater, still stinking of smoke and burned earth. None of the bone fragments had survived, he was glad to see - only a few twisted pieces of metal. It was too easy to imagine a group of Dawnblades floating in midair on their fiery wings, hurling bolt after bolt of fire into this little camp, their swords glowing red.

Jayesh moved on before he grew too homesick for his own Dawnblade. No, he'd conquer this Sunsinger thing and make it as much a part of himself as his blade had been.

As he patrolled, his thoughts wandered to the question of who that camp had belonged to. Obviously, the Praxic Order hadn't caught them. Someone was making weapons of sorrow, either in the City or the Tower, itself. Those rogue guardians out in the EDZ had all carried them.

What if it was someone he knew?

This uncomfortable thought bounced around in his head, unwilling to point at Nell and her erratic behavior. Nell wouldn't build a guardian-killer weapon. Would she?

No, far more likely was that someone had found a black market for weapons of sorrow and was selling them as fast as they could build them. They probably had illicit weapon forges hidden all over the place. If they were a Guardian, they could use their missions to collect Hive bone. The pull of the Darkness wasn't as strong as the pull of man's greed.

"Phoenix," Jayesh thought, "do you ghosts track the cargo coming into the Tower on the various jumpships?"

"Of course," his ghost replied. "But it's pretty boring stuff."

"Does anyone ever bring in a load of Hive bone?"

Phoenix caught on immediately. "Hm. Maybe. Guardians bring in odd things sometimes. Let me check the hanger records."

A gust of wind caught Jayesh's sparrow broadside and nearly flipped it. He wrestled it back under control. This took a minute or two. As the sparrow settled down again, Phoenix said, "Not seeing any reports of bone. Either somebody is erasing it from the records, or they're dumping it elsewhere before returning to the Tower. Also, nice job sparrow wrangling."

"Thanks," Jayesh said. "You know, I'm going to run this by Cal. Maybe he knows more."

"He won't be able to tell you anything," Phoenix replied. "Loose lips crash ships."

"I can keep a secret," Jayesh said. "I just don't want Nell to be involved. I hope she's not. I still have that hand cannon in lockup that I don't know what to do with."

"Let it rot," Phoenix muttered. "My Guardian doesn't need to be sullied any further."

His fierce loyalty spread a tiny bit of happiness through Jayesh's heart.


	7. Chapter 7: Choices

Cal met with Jayesh the following morning for Sunsinger training. He brought with him a blackened metal hoop on a stand.

Jayesh recognized it from his Dawnblade training. A warlock had to throw their fire through the hoop from various distances, which was tricker than it sounded.

They went out to a spot beyond the north gate where new Guardians trained. It was an open field of bare earth and rock, much pummeled and blasted by all three kinds of Light. As Cal set up the hoop, he scrutinized Jayesh. "How's your psychic damage?"

"Better," Jayesh said hurriedly. "I mean, I feel better."

Cal stood up, towering over him, pushing back his long ponytail. "Seen a doctor?"

"Not yet."

"When we finish here, go get yourself checked out. I plan to push you hard today, and you're no good to anyone with Light burn."

Jayesh swallowed, looking at the ring.

"Now," Cal went on, "there's a stiff breeze today, so you'll have to compensate for that when you aim. More than that, I want you to find your ballad. Hum it, if you have to. Let the song fill your being. The Traveler taught you a melody as a start, but a Sunsinger is so much more than that. The song of suns and stars isn't a melody as we think of it. Now sing it and summon your fire."

Jayesh would have preferred meditating for a while. Cal's words seemed to jog his memory, reminding him of chasing the song through his dreams. Yet he couldn't quite grasp it. The song he hummed seemed superficial, like trying to hum a single part of a full orchestral piece. His fire responded to it, but not as much as it should have.

He practiced gathering fire in his palms and throwing it through the hoop. He had a range of twenty feet - after that, the breeze defeated him and sent his fire bolts off course.

"Not bad," Cal said, watching. "The basic song is working. Now, I've been thinking about your injuries. How often are you hurt in battle?"

"It depends," Jayesh replied, panting and opening the neck of his robe to the breeze. "Long range gunfights, I rarely catch bullets. But something gets in my face? I've been pretty messed up by Hive thralls and Taken. And Fallen. Those knives."

Cal nodded slowly, stroking his chin. "Right. I see the scars on your face. I'm going to teach you how to defend yourself. You can actually take your fire and wrap yourself in it. Kind of a fire over-shield. It absorbs physical blows and burns anything attacking you. It only lasts a minute or so, but that's enough to give you an edge."

Cal swept out a hand. Light gleamed gold from his palm, spread up his arm and across his armor, sheathing him in dancing, flickering fire. Jayesh held out a hand and felt the shield's burning heat. If he could learn to do this, no monster would ever reach his eyes again. He had cold shudders just thinking about claws slashing at his face.

Jayesh pulled at the Light, calling it, sculpting it. He coaxed it from his hands to his shoulders, but there it went out. He tried again and again. Sometimes the Light shielded one arm, sometimes his upper body, and once his left leg. But he couldn't make it shield his whole body.

After four hours, Jayesh was so tired, he could barely summon flame at all. His throat ached from humming. He pulled off his robe and stood there in his pants and undershirt, letting the wind cool his overheated body. Sweat soaked him to the waist.

"That's enough for today," Cal said. "Go to Medical and get yourself vetted. Have your ghost send mine the report. I want to increase your training days if you're well enough."

Jayesh nodded. All he wanted to do was go home, shower, and sleep the rest of the day. He had his ghost mend his sore throat, then asked, "You really think I'm ready?"

"You have potential," Cal replied. "Once you find your song, everything will click. You're getting there."

Encouraged, Jayesh returned to the Tower. He dutifully had a medical exam, where the doctor pronounced him with solid phase two psychic damage.

"But it's better than stage three," the doctor said, consulting a tablet with Jayesh's file. "You've definitely improved. Rest." He turned to Jayesh's ghost. "Are you still healing him at night?"

Phoenix backed away a few inches, giving his guardian a guilty look. "Well, I ... I'd grown so tired that I stopped."

The doctor's ghost flew forward and scanned Phoenix slowly and carefully. She announced, "Similar psychic damage. I recommend healing rift therapy for the two of them."

The doctor nodded and tapped his tablet. "Right. If you have time, the warlocks are running rift therapy right now. They have openings."

Relaxing in a healing rift sounded wonderful. "I can spare an hour or so," Jayesh said.

* * *

Healing rift therapy took place in a big room with nothing but a lot of mats on the floor in orderly rows. About half of them were occupied by guardians and non-guardians, sitting with tablets, or lying down and dozing. A group of warlocks sat in the center of the room maintaining stacked healing rifts that turned the floor into blue, rippling Light. Jayesh recognized the technique he had invented during the plague winter.

He picked out a mat and stretched out on his back. Phoenix landed on his chest. The healing Light lapped them both, mending the aching muscles and fatigue of the morning's practice.

Jayesh sighed in bliss and closed his eyes. "I've missed this."

"It feels so good," Phoenix agreed. "I've needed this for ages."

The ghost said nothing else, but Jayesh's heart pained him. Phoenix needed rest and healing, but his guardian could give him neither. Loyal to the last, he'd remained silent about his own damage. Jayesh stroked the ghost's red and yellow shell in wordless apology.

They lay there for a while, dozing in the healing Light. The other patients murmured to each other, and so did the warlocks on duty. The sounds washed over Jayesh in a meaningless, peaceful wave. Nobody was upset. Everyone was relaxed or bored, waiting while the Light eased their sickness or wounds.

Jayesh was dozing when a new cadence in voices nearby snapped him awake. He didn't move or open his eyes, but inside his head, he was alert and listening.

"The waiting list is a hundred deep and counting," a male voice said in an undertone. "I can't keep up with demand."

"It takes time to kill enough Hive," a second voice whispered. "Has to be Knights, and sometimes they're hard to find."

"Stop getting yourself torn up," growled the first. "We wind up in here instead of out there working."

"Hey," muttered the second, "I'm in good with Ada. She lets me use Volundr. Clients pay high for quality, but I'm only one man."

"We'll have to hire another," muttered the first. "Somebody who can keep their mouth shut."

Jayesh cracked an eyelid and peered through his lashes, trying not to move his head. Two men sat on mats nearby, side by side, one of them with his arms and chest swathed in bandages. There was something familiar about them - especially the bigger man, with a shaved head and a hooked nose like a beak. The smaller man had shaggy blond hair and bits of a tattoo on his neck that were obscured by the bandages.

"Phoenix," he thought, "who are those two?"

"The blond bandaged one is a human," Phoenix said. "At least, he has no ghost. The big fellow has a ghost with a masked tag. I'd say that's odd, but it's also hospital policy to protect privacy. I have my tag masked right now."

"Have we seen them before?"

Phoenix opened his eye and glanced in their direction. "Probably. Gambit, I think?"

Had they been in the game Jayesh had observed? Nell's team? Or Grant's? He'd only briefly seen the teams without their helmets as they'd picked up their rewards. The human wouldn't have been in Gambit, anyway.

Jayesh lay there, tense, the healing rift forgotten. These two could be talking about something innocuous. Or they could be the ones making black market weapons of sorrow. He could follow them, try to find out more. Or he could offer to join their operation and infiltrate it from the inside. They'd probably tell him to get lost, but it'd be worth a try. Maybe Phoenix would have a chance to identify them.

The men didn't say much more. A few minutes later, the healing rifts faded. Two doctors came in and checked the patients. While one talked to Jayesh, the other unwrapped the blond man's bandages to check his injuries. Jayesh kept an eye on him as he answered the doctor's questions, trying to see more of the tattoo. This made him seem so spacey, the doctor frowned and recommended Jayesh for further healing. More frustrating to Jayesh was being unable to see the tattoo before the man put his shirt back on.

When the men left, Jayesh followed them. He caught up to them as they reached the Tower walk. "Excuse me. I hear you have a job opening?"

The two turned and looked him up and down. The bigger man jerked his head. "This way. We'll talk in the hanger."

They walked off together, the two men walking a little behind Jayesh, watching him. A sense of uneasiness grew in the pit of his stomach.

_Phoenix, what I have I walked into?_

_I don't know, but if they're weapon dealers, and they don't like you, they'll kill us double-dead._

They made the trip to the hanger in silence. The men guided Jayesh past the area where a crowd of people were building sparrows. Back in a shadowy corner, screened by racks of equipment, they faced each other.

"Who are you?" beak-nose demanded. "How'd you hear about us?"

"I'm Jayesh," he replied. "I was in healing therapy and happened to overhear. Look, I need glimmer. I've been out of work with injuries, and I'm going to jump into Gambit soon, just to survive." It was the raw truth, and Jayesh didn't have to pretend very hard to look desperate.

The two men were unconvinced. "Sure," said the one with the tattoo. "We all need glimmer. How do we know you're not a Vanguard spy?"

Jayesh spread his hands. "I can't afford it. I'm already walking a thin line just to eat. From what I heard, you're selling Black Armory weapons on the side, right?"

The two men exchanged a quick glance. Then they grinned - slow, predatory grins. Jayesh's dance through half-truths was beginning to pay off. Selling Black Armory weapons was far less dangerous than building weapons of sorrow. If Jayesh kept them thinking he knew nothing about that branch of their operation, they might bring him aboard.

"Sure," said beak-nose. "Black Armory doesn't recognize us as official vendors, though. We keep it on the down-low. Helping out people the Vanguard ignores. One day, it'll be Guardian against Guardian, and we aim to be on the winning side." He stuck a fist in Jayesh's face. "You work with us, you keep your trap tight shut. You squeal to the Vanguard, nobody ever finds you or your ghost."

Jayesh nodded with a sense of stepping off a cliff into space. He refused to think about Kari or Connor, or wonder if he'd endangered them.

"Right," said the one with the tattoo. "I'm Tanner, this is Donovan. Right now, we need a guardian to stand lookout and run the online store. We're hitting the Volundr forge tonight. You come, just keep an eye out for trouble. It's out near the EDZ. Later, we need a guy to handle the business end. Fulfill orders, deliver to clients, that stuff. That'll free up Don and me to build up our inventory." Tanner studied Jayesh closely. "Think of this as a trial period. You sing, you're dead."

"Agreed," Jayesh said, sounding calmer than he felt. "What's my pay?"

"Two hundred glimmer a night," Tanner replied. "You won't work every night. Store work, we'll pay hourly. Fifteen sound good?"

Jayesh agreed. Then he added, "This goes both ways. You stiff me, I'll go straight to the Praxic Order."

The three of them smiled at each other like chained dogs before a fight.

"I like him," Donovan muttered to Tanner. He held out a hand to Jayesh. "You don't trust us, we don't trust you, but there's a lot of glimmer to be made. You want out, we'll all walk, nobody has to die. Deal?"

"Deal," Jayesh said, shaking his hand.

* * *

Nell walked in circles in her little apartment, her ghost following her around and around. "Gun," she said. A golden gun made of Light appeared in her hand. She released it and it vanished. "Knives," she said.

A ripple of void light formed over her open palms, but couldn't quite resolve into the blades she wanted. She kept pacing. It felt good to move - her brain worked better that way. "Knives," she said again. The void Light shimmered, but didn't quite materialize.

"Think harder about shadows," Hadrian suggested. "I feel the Light working. But your focus is still too much on your golden gun."

Nell stood still and thought about blending in, hiding, concealment. She crossed the room to the darkest corner and stood there, imagining she was a chameleon.

Part of her mind was still obsessed with Grant-4. She kept thinking of him emerging from an invasion portal, wreathed in darkness and lightning. He was magnificent and terrifying, a huge robot Titan in armor that made him still bigger. Her golden gun wasn't enough. She needed shadow blades. She needed to become a Nightstalker.

"Is it always this hard to switch disciplines?" she asked.

Hadrian studied her. His homemade paint job of red and blue geometric shapes looked a little faded. She needed to repaint him.

"I think it's because you're distracted," he said at last. "Your focus isn't what it should be."

Nell growled and spun in a circle. "All I can think of is that jerk charging me and sending me flying. If only I could disappear and use shadow blades on him!"

"There's more to being a Guardian than just Gambit," Hadrian said in a small voice.

Nell glared at him, her jet-black hair tumbling around her face. "Are you giving me a Jayesh lecture now?"

Hadrian spun his shell to the left, then the right. "Well, I ... I don't mean to. Just saying, if you focused on serving the Light, instead of killing a fellow Guardian ..."

Nell huffed and rolled her eyes. "Just can it, Hadrian. I'm doing this to protect you. Nobody threatens my ghost."

"But what if ..." Hadrian flinched as she glared at him.

"What if Grant is crushing on me?" Nell said. "So what? It makes no difference what his motive is if he kills you."

"But he won't," Hadrian said. "You don't attack the ghost of someone you admire."

Nell dug one hand into her hair and stood there, trying to come to grips with herself. On one side, fear gnawed at her, fear that arose into passionate anger. On the other, she was intensely interested in what it might be like to talk to Grant and find out more. Pulled in two directions, even her Light was stuck somewhere halfway between void and solar.

"I'll see how this next Gambit match goes," she finally decided. "If Grant does his usual thing of hunting me all over the place, I'll know he means me harm."

"But that's the game," Hadrian protested. "Invaders are supposed to kill the other team."

"Knife," Nell said, ignoring him.

This time, a rippling purple knife appeared in midair, floating over her palm. She snatched it out of the air and held it up. "Got it!"

"Nice!" Hadrian cheered. But he silently sent a message to Grant-4's ghost, warning her of what Nell was planning.

* * *

"Grant?" Sentry said, materializing over his shoulder.

The big Exo lay on his bed, reading a book he'd retrieved from the ruins of Old London. He looked up. "Yes?"

His ghost twitched her shell nervously. "I just had a message from Nell's ghost. She's trying to figure out how to murder us both. She thinks if you kill her in Gambit tomorrow, it means you want to kill her ghost."

"What?" Grant exclaimed, sitting up and laying the book aside. His orange eyes blazed in his metal face. "Has her team been telling her that?"

"That's all Hadrian said," Sentry replied.

Grant growled and dragged a hand down his face. "Her team, I swear. If I could back out of the next match, I would." He sat on the edge of his bed and leaned his elbows on his knees. "What do I do, Sentry? Gambit has rules. I have to follow them. That means killing as many of the other team as I can."

"You could trade roles with someone else," Sentry suggested. "Don's a decent invader, when he tries."

"I'll ask him," Grant said. "Or Fennel or Roy. But they're better at collecting."

He sat in silence for a long moment, gazing at his jointed mechanical hands. He turned over one, then the other, studying his palms. "I won't," he whispered. "I'll never attack her again. Even if I have to throw the game."

"The Drifter will penalize you," Sentry whispered.

Grant nodded. "I know. Hurting Nell isn't worth it." He looked at his hands again. "It was never worth it. But I was too blind to see it." He got up and stood gazing at his armor rack. The black armor he always wore to the games was dented and scratched, with scorch marks across the breastplate. He picked up a gauntlet, looked at it, then dropped it on the floor. Instead, he selected a different set of armor that had been buried beneath the rest. Armor in Vanguard blue and orange.

"The Drifter will think you snitched," Sentry pointed out.

Grant shrugged. "It's my last game. I don't care. I want to show Nell that I'm not her enemy." He buckled on the breastplate and stood gazing down at it, tracing the V design. "I'm a Guardian. I'm going to start behaving like it."

Sentry chirped her approval.


	8. Chapter 8: Volundr Forge

Jayesh accompanied Tanner and Donovan to the EDZ that evening.

He was awash in misgivings at what he was doing, but he was committed, now. He'd planned to keep it from Kari. But as soon as he went home, he took one look at her open, trusting face and found himself spilling his guts.

Kari listened without expression. When he finished, she drew him close and kissed him. "Thank you for telling me," she murmured. "I think you're equal parts foolhardy and brave for trying this. But how will anyone ever crack these illegal weapon rings unless we know more about them?"

"I'm so glad you understand," he said, hugging her in relief. "I've put you and Connor in danger, and I need you to be on your guard. If things go south and they kill me, they'll come for you, next."

"They'll have a surprise waiting," Kari said, arc Light flickering in her eyes. "Keep me in the loop, all right? The instant the situation smells the least bit sour, I want to know." She squeezed his shoulder. "And don't die, heartspark. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Even now, flying his ship into the darkened sky over Europe, her words sent a combination of anguish and pleasure through him. If he got himself killed, he'd have let her down terribly. At the same time, she cared about him fiercely, and she had his back. There was nobody else he'd rather have on his side in pitched battle.

In the meantime, he had to walk a fine line of working for crooks without tipping his hand as a spy. He was only supposed to keep watch ... for what?

His memory replayed his encounter with Shin Malphur. The crack of the golden gun. The clink of the dead ghost's parts falling into the leaves. The bone-studded pistol hitting the ground with a thunk at Jayesh's feet.

Their activities must remain a secret, but if the Man with the Golden Gun appeared, they were all doomed. Shin Malphur shot first and talked later. Jayesh wouldn't be exempt.

He also had another worry. As they swept into the deeper darkness of the mainland, the flickering light of the Shard of the Traveler illuminated the horizon. As they flew closer, the whole forest around it glowed a dim blue. The Light pollution was visible at night, the extent of it greater than Jayesh had thought.

Part of him wanted to climb that hill, as he had so often in his dreams. Touch the glowing flowers. Run his hands over the Shard's rough surface. Touch the raw Light. Find the song.

But no, he had work to do. Odious work, building illegal weapons for killing Guardians. Of course, he had no proof that any weapons of sorrow were being manufactured. He'd have to keep his eyes open and find out.

The three of them landed their ships in an open meadow a few miles from the Shard. Tanner and Donovan loaded themselves and Jayesh with heavy steel ingots, casting molds, and piles of tools. They carried them across the meadow, through a stand of trees, and down into a cave in the hillside.

Inside, lit by their ghosts' headlights, was the Volundr forge.

It was a huge machine, twenty feet tall, with a massive coiled heating element beneath an oven-like space. It was currently cold and dark, but Donovan fed fuel and batteries into its belly. The heating element began to warm up the forge. This took some time, so the three made multiple trips to and from their ships, hauling in more equipment.

Jayesh hadn't expected to work this hard. He did take a look at the supplies they were hauling in. No Hive bone. Plenty of steel and ceramic, copper and silver.

When he finally took his post at the cave mouth, he was glad to sit on a rock and rest. He also watched, back down the entrance passage, as the two filled little heavy buckets with ingots and set them inside the forge to melt.

"Those are called crucibles," Phoenix observed in Jayesh's head. "Containers for melting metal."

"Explains a lot about the Crucible," Jayesh thought. "Anything on scan?"

"Nothing," Phoenix replied. "Not even Fallen. Quiet night. Don't doze off, though."

Jayesh pulled out his tablet. "I'd better check their online store, since I'm supposed to be running it."

Jayesh learned to operate the store and how order processing worked. He also learned that there were one hundred and eight weapons on order. Five were being manufactured tonight. Two pulse rifles, a sniper rifle, a hand cannon, and a machine gun. He'd seen the molds for all of those.

He also read the information on the store, itself.

_Why should we expect the Guardians to defend us? Their numbers have diminished, especially after the Red War. When we are next attacked, we must protect our families and friends. The Black Armory and subsidiaries are here to equip you for the future. High-quality weapons that outperform the best SUROS and OMOLON can offer, Black Armory creates weapons by the people, for the people. Our prices are competitive. No tax applied._

Jayesh gazed into the darkness, listened to the chirping of the crickets, and pondered this. "I can't say they're doing a bad thing, Phoenix."

"No," Phoenix agreed. "Other enemies will come for the Traveler, and the whole City must fight or perish. I'm trying to see a connection to the weapons of sorrow. Killing the Guardians makes the human plight worse, don't you think? They don't want to depend on us, but they need us just the same."

"I've probably made a huge mistake," Jayesh thought. "Again. As usual. These guys aren't what I thought they were. Light, if there's no weapons of sorrow involved, I might just throw in and help them out for real."

"We don't know much, yet," Phoenix replied. "They did mention farming Hive Knights. They may augment the weapons with bone later, at a different location. This is Black Armory property, here. They wouldn't want to defile it for fear of being caught. Remember that burned camp."

"True." Jayesh flicked through the various screens, making sure he hadn't missed anything. Now he really had mixed feelings. He had stepped into a giant gray area, morally speaking. What was the right course of action? What was wrong? Where should he draw the line?

His first instinct was to reach out to the Traveler for guidance. But his inner reaching met only silence. No source of Light. No welcoming thought. He was desperately alone, a Guardian in solitary confinement. He floundered, feeling for his Light, and it was weak and sick. Just like he was. He had to recover from this psychic damage - and what if his Light never returned to full power?

In the case of a moral choice, all he had was his own conscience. And he didn't have enough information to discern right from wrong, yet. So he'd bide his time and deliver the service he had promised in the meantime.

Jayesh back-checked the payment information on file for each client. One of them had given information for a bank that didn't exist. He froze the order and sent them a message to correct it. Then he walked down into the cave to let Tanner and Donovan know.

The expressions of surprise on their faces were comical. "You ... actually checked?" Tanner said.

"Wow, thanks," Donovan said. "I thought I'd cleared all those, but I guess one sneaked through."

"Hold the machine gun, then," Jayesh said. "If they fix their payment info and their weapon is late, that's their fault."

He returned to his post, leaving two very surprised craftsmen behind him.

"I think you just won some points," Phoenix said in his head.

Jayesh pulled on his helmet and sat on his rock again. "I'm going to do the job, Light help me. But it'll be harder if I have to rat them out, later." He sighed. "Pull up my HUD, I can't see a thing out here."

He felt a touch of warm pride from Phoenix as the ghost worked from phase. The head's up display appeared on the inside of his helmet, along with night vision in shades of green. The dark trees lit up like daylight. The distant Shard became a mass of brilliant light that dazzled his optics. Jayesh kept his vision away from it.

He sat there for a while, watching his surroundings. Phoenix popped up a card game in the corner of the HUD. Jayesh played with him for a while, beat him once, then was soundly thrashed in the next two games.

Near midnight, Phoenix pinged movement on radar. Jayesh straightened, drawing his pulse rifle. "What is it?"

"A large animal," Phoenix replied. "I can't identify it. It probably won't attack you, but this close to the Shard, who knows?"

Jayesh sat perfectly still, trying to blend with the rocks and cliff side. Something moved in the trees to his left. It paced slowly toward him, halting often, until it emerged from the trees.

It resembled a deer - but no species Jayesh had ever seen. Its antlers had only one point each, but each point was two feet long. Two wing-like frills ran down its back and flanks.

The deer-thing halted and threw its head up, staring at Jayesh, nostrils trembling. The frills on its back rippled and stood up. The human and creature faced each other, perfectly still. Jayesh tightened his grip on his rifle, ready to raise and fire if the thing charged.

But after a few seconds, the deer-thing wheeled and galloped away into the woods.

Jayesh leaped to his feet. "What was that, Phoenix?"

"Beats me," the ghost replied. "You know the Traveler terraforms planets. That means radically adapting local species. The Shard is just dumping that power into the ground with no direction, so the local species are mutating to adapt."

Jayesh stood there, processing this, creepy shivers running through him. "If that's what the deer look like, what else has mutated? Are there bears?"

"I don't want to find out," Phoenix said.

Donovan noticed Jayesh's stance. He hurried up the tunnel to the cave mouth, drawing a sidearm. "What's wrong?"

"Some kind of mutant deer," Jayesh said. "It had ... wings or something."

Donovan relaxed. "If wildlife is all we have to deal with, then we're lucky. Most of it wont harm us. Usually."

Donovan returned inside the cave and went back to work. Jayesh paced back and forth at the entrance.

"Not sure how much I like this job, Phoenix," he thought. "But wait until Cal hears about that deer. He's studying the Traveler's terraforming methods."

"How will you explain being out here at night?" Phoenix asked.

Jayesh tried to come up with an answer that wasn't a lie. He couldn't.

By the time dawn arrived, Jayesh was nodding off on his feet. Tanner and Donovan had more work to do and couldn't afford to let the forge cool off, so they simply kept heating metal, pouring it into molds, and tempering each part. A growing pile of finished parts, gleaming and new, was growing in a big box in a corner. The whole cave was hot. Tanner and Donovan stripped to the waist, their bodies gleaming with sweat.

Jayesh had time to study Tanner's tattoo - an interwoven design like a Celtic knot, with a skull in the center of his back. He had a feeling he'd seen it during the plague winter - had Tanner been one of the humans he'd healed? There had been so many. And why did it make him uneasy?

Another thing that bothered him - how had both Tanner and Donovan been hurt badly enough to wind up in the Tower hospital? Wouldn't Donovan's ghost heal him? Even now, Donovan's left arm and back were scored with fresh, pink scars. Jayesh hadn't actually seen Donovan's ghost, yet - Phoenix only picked up the tag.

The sun climbed above the trees, and work went on. Jayesh wearily stood guard. His insides began to ache with hunger. Phoenix helpfully transmatted a ration pack from the ship. Jayesh sat in the sun and ate it. As he did, Phoenix said, "Kari just sent a message to ask if you're all right."

"Tell her I'm fine," Jayesh replied. "Stood guard all night. Nothing much happened. Probably won't head home for a few more hours."

Phoenix transmitted this. After a moment, her reply returned. "Be careful, heartspark. I ran a check on Donovan. He's Donovan Moorehead, Titan, veteran of Six Fronts and Twilight Gap. Currently one of the top Gambit players. He's also known for his incredible weapon mods. Be careful."

Incredible weapon mods. Jayesh glanced down the tunnel to the cave, where two figures worked around the forge. Crafting weapons from scratch wasn't the same as modding them. But he hadn't yet seen any indication that these would become weapons of sorrow.

Gambit, ugh. "My first game's tomorrow, Phoenix," Jayesh groaned. "I'm going to be wiped out."

"I'll be with you," Phoenix assured him. "I'll make sure you're rested."

"Thanks, little light." Jayesh finished his ration pack and had Phoenix transmat the wrappers back to his ship. Then he moved into the shade and pulled out his tablet.

He had an angry reply to the frozen machine gun order. The client was furious at being caught and trying to justify their false information, claiming the bank did exist, and he was just stupid. Jayesh again hunted for the bank in the City listings. It didn't exist.

As he sat there, wondering whether to bother replying, he gazed up at the Shard of the Traveler. It tugged at him, calling him, inviting him deep into the polluted Light, where mutants arose and Darkness mingled.

He was still staring when Donovan emerged from the cave, mopping his face with his shirt. "This batch is done. Anything to report?"

Jayesh startled, waking from a half-doze. He handed Donovan has tablet. "Seems I'm stupid for not recognizing the Bank of Greg."

Donovan read the message and chuckled. "Let them whine. No cash, no gun." He returned the tablet. "Time to haul equipment out. We can transmat most of it. The flash won't give us away in the daylight."

The work was much less arduous this time. They cleaned up the cave, leaving the forge creaking and ticking as it began to cool. Then they returned to their ships.

As Tanner and Donovan lifted off, Jayesh said to his ghost, "Take us closer to the Shard."

Phoenix looked at him, spinning his shell nervously. "Is that a good idea?"

"I want to know why I keep dreaming about it," Jayesh said.

Without another word, Phoenix guided the ship over the trees and down into a clearing at the foot of the Shard. Jayesh got out and walked into the dead forest.

Or was it dead? The old trees had died, true, the bark peeling off their trunks in long scrolls. But from their roots sprang new growth - saplings whose leaves bore little resemblance to their progenitors. They dripped with blue sap.

Blue flowers and fungus carpeted the ground. In some places, the very earth was tinted blue. So much Light. So much corruption.

Jayesh climbed toward the Shard, his fatigue making his brain a foggy blank. He kept trying to form thoughts, but they faded into nothing. He needed sleep, but not here. He might never wake up again, his Light leeched away into the ground.

Knee-deep in glowing blue flowers, he reached a piece of the Shard. It arched above him, the size of a house, one edge as sharp as a razor blade. Jayesh circled it until he stood on the inside, gazing up at the thin layers of support structure, still crackling with lightning and energy. He touched a metal bar and felt the Arc Light humming within. If there had ever been a song here, it was ruined, discordant, nothing but noise.

"Why, Traveler?" he whispered. "Why must you be silent? I don't know what I'm doing. I'm spiraling toward Darkness and I can't seem to stop."

No answer. No touch of Light. He was alone in the void, a struggling spark, trying to do the right thing, even if he wasn't certain what that was. Despair lurked in the wings. The Light continued to pour out of the Shard, into the land, but there was none for him. The Sky had fallen to earth. This was living death, walking about in silence, isolated, starved for the fellowship he had lost.

"There's nothing for me here," he murmured.

As he turned to make the short hike back to his ship, Phoenix said, sharply, "Jay."

Jayesh looked up and froze.

Standing just beyond the Shard's corner was the figure of a Hunter. He wore no mask, but his hood was pulled low over his eyes, only his nose and mouth visible. His arms were folded, no weapon drawn, but Shin Malphur was a gunslinger. He could draw and shoot in the space of a breath.

"Good morning," Jayesh said.

"You again," Shin Malphur said, unmoving. "What attraction does this wreck hold for you?"

Jayesh touched the end of a broken metal strut. "The Light," he said simply.

"This is the wrong place to seek Light," Malphur replied.

"It empowered a Guardian during the Red War," Jayesh said.

"One," Malphur said. "Many others came. They found no Light. Neither will you."

"I'm a Guardian," Jayesh said. "Doesn't that count?"

"Many are called," Malphur said. "But few are chosen. Being raised in Light means nothing unless your choices align with the Light, itself. Guardians seek power. They pick it indiscriminately, not caring from what source it comes. Darkness. Light. Strength. Crushing others for personal gain. Nothing matters but power. Do you know the adage about power?"

"It corrupts," Jayesh replied.

Malphur inclined his head. "If power is what you seek, the Shard holds more than any Guardian has ever dared dream. But it will destroy you. The taint it carries will infect you, rot you from the inside. It will consume you, sin by sin, as you scream your confessions into the darkness. In the end, you are consumed. Like the Taken. There is power - in the end of self and choice."

Jayesh stared at the man for a long moment. The bleak horror of these words slowly seeped into his mind. This was not something any Guardian should ever know or think about. "Dare I ask how you know this?"

Malphur slowly smiled - a wide, white smile. "Do you dare? Perhaps. I am more interested in you. Your choice. Are you drawn to this place in search of power? Why do you come, Guardian Jayesh?"

Malphur's words were a scale, a measure known only to himself. Jayesh could not run, could not hide himself from being weighed on that scale - even flight would be measured, to his detriment. He could lie, but that, too would be weighed. Execution was only a hair's breadth away.

Jayesh drew a careful breath. "I came to repair a broken relationship."

Malphur's smile faded slightly. Whatever he had expected, it wasn't that. "What?"

Jayesh gestured to the nearest Shard. "Once, I spoke to the Traveler whenever I wanted. It gave me advice, and more Light, and ... and it was my friend. As far as it can be, I guess. But my Light was broken, and I can't speak to it anymore. I was hoping that here, where I can touch a piece of it, the Traveler might hear me again."

"Did it?"

"No."

Malphur was silent, his mouth folded into a hard line. Jayesh deliberately looked away from him, up at the fragment, his gaze following the curve of broken metal and nutronium. It had been alive, once. Now it was life and death, mingled.

"Well," Malphur said, stepping backward. "You have strange reasoning." He smiled again. "I'd like to talk more someday, Guardian Jayesh. Maybe you can speak to the Traveler on my behalf."

Malphur was silently letting Jayesh go free. As an indication that he understood this, Jayesh walked down the hill, past the hunter, consciously avoiding looking into his face under the hood. Malphur watched him go and made no hostile moves.

Jayesh walked all the way back to his ship, but his back broke out in a sweat, expecting a bullet from behind. He kept his cool until he was strapped into the cockpit. Then he whispered, "Phoenix, get us in the air, quick! Now!"

The ghost ignited the engines and lifted off in record time. Jayesh took them straight into orbit, where he circled the planet, watching the instruments for any sign of pursuit.

"He was going to kill me," Jayesh said hoarsely, gripping the flight yoke. "Traveler's Light, he was sounding me out. Seeing if I'd gone rogue. And I prattled on about talking to the Traveler."

"It saved our lives," Phoenix replied, hovering beside the instrument panel. "He didn't know what to make of it. He thought you were out there drinking Light the way the Taken do."

"How do you know what he thought?"

"The things he said, about power. The way he watched you. His hands were an inch from his guns the whole time. Light, Jay." Phoenix flew up and leaned his shell against his guardian's cheek. "I almost lost you."

Jayesh automatically cupped a hand around him, still watching the instruments. "He'd have killed you, too. If he told you to leave my corpse, you wouldn't do it."

Phoenix's blue eye flashed red for an instant. "I've killed another ghost before. I'd do it again."

"You'd kill Shin Malphur's ghost?"

"I would," Phoenix said, his voice low and deadly. "He has no right to judge Guardians and mete out his own twisted justice. I'd kill his ghost. And then I'd round up a team of hunters. And we'd kill him."

Jayesh blinked at his ghost. "You really would?"

Phoenix gazed back, unblinking, his shell still as a stone. "I would."

They gazed at each other for a long, speechless moment. Then Jayesh reached out, lifted his ghost out of the air, and hugged him. Then he set Phoenix back in midair and said, "Set course for the Tower."

Neither of them spoke the entire journey home.


	9. Chapter 9: Gambit

"We now have one hundred fifteen Dredgens," Aunor Mahal read off her tablet screen. "Gambit draws in an average of three hundred players per event, across all brackets. To date, there have been only two fatalities, due to encounters gone bad with enemies in the arena. Neither were Guardian-perpetrated."

Aunor and Ikora sat at a table in Ikora's inner office. The only equipment they carried were their ghosts and tablets. There would be no material records kept of these reports. Both women had brown skin and very short hair. Neither of them cared about appearance.

Ikora nodded, her expression grave and professional. "Does the Drifter move about the Tower much?"

"Not since he was assigned the annex," Aunor replied. "He stays holed up there when he's not on his ship. Acts like he's hiding. His groupies bring him food supplies and clean up after him, the slob."

"He has quite the operation," Ikora observed. "Now. What about the Black Armory?"

Aunor gave a small snort. "My spies infiltrated them in the first week. Ada-1 is wary of guardians, but once we restored her forges to operation, she warmed up. There is now a steady stream of quality weapons flowing into the City's black market. We've observed Guardians using them, as well as City militia and civilians. The criminal element have them, as well, but the militia keeps them in check."

"Darkness always returns," Ikora murmured. "Let them arm. It may give us an edge."

"You think that's wise?" Aunor said, raising her eyebrows. "There has been an uptick in the occurrence of weapons of sorrow. Someone is creating them to kill guardians. How long do you think we would last if the City turned against us?"

"How long would the City last if we were not here to defend it?" Ikora replied quietly. "Don't jump at shadows, Aunor. Where are you finding these weapons? Civilian hands?"

"Primarily rogue guardians," Aunor said, touching her tablet. "My team discovered and destroyed a camp outside the South Gate where someone was modding weapons in bulk. We found evidence of at least eleven different weapons. Those weapons are in the wild, unaccounted for. Oh." She pulled up a new screen. "Your acolyte Jayesh turned one in. He didn't say how he acquired it."

"Jayesh did?" Ikora said, eyes widening a fraction. "He's the last Guardian I'd ever expect to use a weapon of sorrow."

"I doubt he used it," Aunor replied. "He never touched it directly and heard no voices, according to our post-analysis. Of course, the man has psychic damage, so who knows if he was telling the truth."

Ikora flipped back and forth between screens on her own tablet, reading the reports. She also pulled up the results of Jayesh's latest medical exam, using her Vanguard credentials. "He's improving," she said with relief. "His training hasn't been too hard on him."

"Cal wishes to push him harder," Aunor replied. "But I'm not here to talk about your pet warlocks, Rey. If Black Armory-quality weapons are being converted to weapons of sorrow, we have a crisis on our hands."

"Yes," Ikora mused. "Send word to the Hidden. Keep an eye out for anyone researching the Hive, or any Guardian who seeks out Hive Knights for the bone. Also watch for erratic behavior in Gambit or Crucible."

"They're Guardians," Aunor said. "Erratic behavior is their modus operandi."

And Ikora had to agree.

* * *

Nell sat on a high catwalk in the Drifter's ship, the Derelict. She'd wrapped herself in her cloak against the cold and sat with her legs tucked under her. Inside her helmet, she watched a tiny screen of the current game of Gambit. Down on Mercury, among the Vex ruins and hot, dusty wind, Jayesh was fighting enemies and collecting motes along with his team.

"Newbie games are so slow," Nell muttered to her ghost.

"They're still learning," Hadrian replied. He was snuggled into the crook of her arm, under her cloak, for warmth. She had spent most of the previous day removing the old paint from his shell and sketching out new designs. He had requested a rearing Pegasus, and she had practiced on many sheets of paper before she created a version they both liked. Now Hadrian's shell bore a winged horse in red and blue, and he was very proud of it.

"If you're cold, you could phase," she told him.

"It's not warm in phase," he replied. "It's not cold, either. It just ... is. I can't be touched there, so that's all right. But right now I just wanted to be with you." His voice was a little anxious.

Nell stroked him with her fingertips, glancing across the Derelict's interior to the other team. Two big Titans, a hunter, and a warlock, all with helmets on. One Titan wore Vanguard gear today, probably making some kind of point to the Drifter. The other Titan wore black armor, and that must be Grant. He was watching her.

Nell made a V with two fingers, pointed at her eyes, then at him. He responded with a single-fingered salute.

"It is so on," she muttered.

Nearby, one of her teammates transmatted onto the catwalk. Cidrex, one of the team's three hunters.

He sat beside her and bumped fists. "Hey, look. I smuggled along some hot coffee. Want some?" He produced a large silver thermos and cups from under his cloak.

"Real coffee?" Nell exclaimed. Coffee was immensely expensive in the Last City, a recently rediscovered crop grown only in one small hothouse. The Awoken in the Reef grew it in far larger quantities, but they charged insane prices for it.

Cidrex poured her a cup of the fragrant, black liquid. Nell pulled off her helmet and wrapped both cold hands around the warm cup. The coffee scorched her mouth and throat, but here in the cold ship, it felt wonderful.

"Gotta keep the team on their feet, right?" Cidrex said. "Bought coffee with my winnings. After that last match, I've been rolling in glimmer."

"Me, too," Nell said, breathing the steam. "I think I'll drop some on coffee when we get back."

Liran and Nessa arrived, and accepted the precious drink with surprise and delight. The three hunters and warlock sat together on the high catwalk, keeping an eye on the opposing team, and chatting.

"They're watching us," Liran's ghost for her. She nodded at the Titans. "Watch your back out there, Nell. Grant's gunning for you."

"Supposedly he has a crush on me," Nell said.

Her team laughed.

"I could see that," Nessa said. "Isn't that how Guardians fall in love? Killing each other during blood sport?"

"You'll really have to watch out, then," Cidrex said. "He'll want to murder you to prove his affection."

Nell's hand found Hadrian under her cloak. "Do you think he'd hurt my ghost?"

The team shrugged and made noncommittal sounds.

"If you turn him down," Liran's ghost said, "who knows? All those feelings might turn to hate. A jilted man is nothing to trifle with."

"I heard a story like that," Nessa said. "A girl and a guy broke up. The guy stalked her, killed her ghost. She had to kill his ghost and him together. Or maybe it was a movie. Point is, watch out."

Nell pulled her cloak a little tighter around her, shielding Hadrian from sight. "My ghost has already been through years of torture. He's not going to die because of some stupid Titan's feelings."

"How does anyone torture a ghost?" Nessa said.

Nell told them about Hadrian being torn apart by the Fallen and rebuilt with Servitor parts. "He's terrified of being taken apart, or even touched, by anyone but me. And if anyone, I don't care who it is, so much as breathes in his direction, I will fill them with shadow blades."

Her team listened to this in sympathetic dismay. "Your poor ghost!" Nessa burst out. "No wonder you're so protective. You have trouble with Grant, we'll gang up and execute him for you."

"We got your back," Cidrex agreed.

"Agreed," said Liran's ghost.

Nell smiled at them. "You guys are the best."

Down below, and further forward along the ship's cavernous main deck, the two newbie teams transmatted into the Derelict. They were panting and gripping their weapons, fresh from fighting their Primevals.

"Team one, you're champions!" the Drifter said from his balcony overlooking the teams. "Team two, try harder! Bank those motes, don't carry them around! Got it?"

The team nodded.

"All right, transmat firing!" The Drifter worked the commands from a battered tablet. The teams disappeared back down to Mercury, starting their second round. The Drifter returned to his control room to send enemies and commentate the match.

Nell sipped her coffee. "Looks like Jayesh was on the winning team."

"Who?" Cidrex asked.

"A guy on my fireteam. He observed the matches last time."

"Oh, him." Cidrex shrugged. "You told him about your thing with Grant?"

Nell snorted. "Yes. Jayesh thinks I should get to know him. Fat chance of that." She glared at the black-armored Titan across the ship, but he was talking to the Vanguard-Titan and didn't see.

"Well, we'll look out for you," Nessa said. "Even if your lame-ass fireteam won't."

Nell smiled. She lifted her cloak a little and looked down at Hadrian. "You all right?"

"Toasty," the ghost assured her, his blue eye switching into a smile emote.

Nell cuddled him. "Going to be at the top of your healing game?"

"Always," Hadrian replied. "I had to be fast to avoid the Fallen, and it's made me a fast healer."

"You're the only reason I can knife fight."

Hadrian's eye moved in tiny flicks, studying her face. "You're the only reason I'm still alive."

She lifted him and kissed his shell, very gently. "I'll never let anyone hurt you ever again."

"Thanks," he whispered.

She tucked him back under her cloak and pulled her helmet on. The second game was half over, the banks nearly full enough to summon a primeval. Nell watched as Jayesh tried invading. He jumped through the portal, emerged in the other arena bathed in Taken energy, and sniped the other team. He killed two, sneaking from cover to cover, before his time ran out and the Drifter recalled him.

"Yay Jayesh!" Nell cheered. "I knew you could do it!"

"He'll be fun to have on our team," Hadrian agreed. "You know, when he's not doubting himself."

"That does get irritating," Nell agreed. "I'll have to ask what he thought of invading. I'll bet he goes on about it for twenty minutes."

Hadrian laughed.

The teams summoned their Primevals and began the race to kill them. The two experienced teams grew quiet, watching the action on their helmet cams.

"Come on, Jay," Nell muttered. "Use your super!"

"He can't," Hadrian pointed out. "Psychic damage, remember?"

"I thought he was better! What's he doing in Gambit with no super?"

"Wait," Nessa said. "Your warlock friend has no super?"

"No way," Cidrex said, leaning in. "What's the matter with him?"

"Riven ate his Dawnblade," Nell replied.

Her team stared at her. There was a moment of shocked silence as they watched the game on their screens, tracking the warlock who fought with firearms only.

"Well," Liran's ghost pointed out, "his team's winning."

Whether it was the combination of fighters, or simply good team synergy, Jayesh's team were burning down their primeval. When the other team invaded, the whole team hunted the invader and killed them in seconds.

"He's singing," Hadrian observed.

"What?" Nell said.

"Jayesh is singing to his team," Hadrian said. "Phoenix is sending me a private feed. He thinks it's beautiful."

"Singing," Nell muttered. "That shouldn't work."

But somehow, it was working - the team of new Gambit players, still learning the rules, were cooperating like a professional team, anticipating each other's movements, coordinating weapon fire, seeming to read each other's minds. Jayesh never threw a grenade or even threw a fire punch-he used two rifles and a rocket launcher. But his song propelled his team to killing their Primeval a full minute before the other team.

The Drifter transmatted both teams back to the Derelict. He walked out on his balcony, clapping, as the teams lowered their weapons and tried to catch their breaths.

"Shut out, team one!" he exclaimed. "That was great. You really pulled together. Keep that up, you'll blast through the rankings, go up against the really tough teams. Team two, you lost, but you did well. Banked your motes, got your Primeval up. You'll do better next time. Line up over there, teams. Payout time."

Nell climbed to her feet and nudged Hadrian, who vanished. Her match was next. But she did want to congratulate Jayesh and find out more about his weird song.

She waited until his team had received their glimmer and transmatted it to their ships. Then she found Jayesh, standing to one side, gazing up at a screen that displayed scores.

"Your team won, Jay!" Nell exclaimed, slapping him on the back.

He grinned. "Hey, Nell! Didn't know you were watching. Yes, it was pretty frantic."

"Hadrian said you were singing?"

Jayesh shrugged. "It felt right."

"Felt right?" Nell said. "What was it, some kind of psychic boost? Your team turned into a machine. Even my team doesn't fight like that, and we're really good."

"I don't think so," Jayesh replied, glancing around. "Not sure we should discuss it here."

One of the hunters from Jayesh's team walked up. "You have a great voice, dude. Whatever that song was, I want you to sing it again. In a Crucible match. On my team."

"Hey, me too," chimed in a female Titan. "I want to play more Gambit with him. We could beat every team on the roster. You're signed up for the next match, right?"

Jayesh looked cornered. He backed away, raising both hands. "Look, I was just trying out, today. I don't know if I'll keep playing."

His team clamored for him to please play again.

"Tell you what," Jayesh said. "Give my ghost your codes, and next time I play, I'll let you know."

This calmed everyone down. Their ghosts communicated with Phoenix, then the crowd dispersed.

"You staying to watch my match?" Nell said.

"I wouldn't miss it," Jayesh said. "Good luck out there!"

Nell hesitated. "Do you think you could sing to me as I play?"

He shook his head. "That'd be cheating. Besides, the whole team has to hear it."

The Drifter called both teams to the transmat stations. Nell hesitated, scrutinizing Jayesh's face. "It's because you're a Sunsinger, isn't it?"

He shrugged.

Nell dashed to her station, baffled at how he didn't even have a super charge, but he could still use his Light in a way she'd never heard of before.

"Eyes up, Guardian," Hadrian told her. "We have a team to beat."

Nell spotted the Titan in black armor on the other side of the deck. "Grant-4 is going down today."

* * *

Jayesh transmatted back to his ship and had Phoenix display the feed of Nell's match on the big view screen. He kicked back in the pilot seat and rested his boots on the control panel, ready to watch and relax.

"Did you make up that song?" Phoenix asked, floating beside him.

"No," Jayesh said. "It's kind of spooky, but ... I think it's from my past life. It came out of this really deep, subliminal place in my mind."

"It worked."

"It did."

It had been a chanting, marching sort of song, sung to the rhythm of his pulse rifle's bursts. Jayesh had started humming it to try to coax his Light into operating, only to find it affecting his team, all moving in time to the song. Some of them even hummed along. The song didn't have words, really, just notes.

He had already half-dismissed the musical teamwork as simply a good group who enjoyed a good rhythm. It had nothing to do with him or his broken Light. Their win had been due to their fighting skills, not his voice.

They watched as Nell's team charged into the hot, dusty Mercury arena. On the other side, Grant's team did the same.

"Which one is Grant?" Jayesh asked. "Black armor?"

"No, actually," Phoenix replied. "Vanguard colors. I wonder why he switched?"

"Huh." Jayesh rummaged around beneath his seat, located a water bottle, and drained half. "I wonder if Nell realizes."

"She'll be invading soon," Phoenix said, watching the screen. "Speaking of invading, that was weird."

"It was." Jayesh didn't know what to make of it. A Taken power rush was nothing like he had expected. He'd been thinking of the irresistible pull of a Maw, a devouring portal that swallowed a being and later vomited them back into reality as Taken. What he'd actually experienced had been a blast of strength, a sense of overwhelming confidence, and the sensation of flying rather than running. Infinite power. Infinite stamina. His will was untouched-it was why he'd chosen to stay under cover rather than charge the other team-but he'd felt good enough to plan to try it later.

It had felt good. That unsettled him. Darkness wasn't supposed to feel that good. No wonder Guardians became addicted. Was there something wrong with him, servant of the Light, when he could pick up the Darkness's power so easily?

Part of his singing, afterward, had been an attempt to fill himself with Light and banish the memory of that pleasurable feeling. Even now, he drummed his fingers on his thigh and hummed it softly, uneasily.

On the screen, Nell invaded the other team, and went after the Titan in black armor.

"Uh oh," Jayesh muttered. "She doesn't know Grant changed his gear."

Nell disappeared from the camera's view, then reappeared as she attacked the Titan from behind with whirling Void knives. The Titan shoulder-charged her into a rock, where they both died, the Titan impaled on her knives. The Drifter guffawed.

Nell and the Titan resurrected, Nell back on her own side. This time, the Titan invaded and killed Nell's whole team, Nell included.

"I need popcorn for this match," Jayesh said.

"Me too," Phoenix said. "Light! She thinks she's fighting Grant. And look at Grant! He's back there, collecting motes, not even trying to invade. What's gotten into him?"

"I wonder if the Praxic Order had a chat with him," Jayesh said. "Convinced him to sell them information on Gambit or something."

"Or he doesn't want to hurt Nell."

"Maybe so."

They watched in suspense as Grant's team summoned their Primeval first, and killed it first. Nell was visibly raging, kicking rocks, slamming the hilt of a knife into a wall.

"She's not happy about this match," Jayesh muttered.

The second match began. Again, Nell and the black-armored Titan went head to head. She only managed to kill him once. The rest of the time, he or his team killed her and her team-except Grant. Grant never engaged the invader, never attempted to invade, himself, and collected more than half his team's motes. When they summoned their second Primeval, Grant destroyed it with a pair of electrified fists.

Nell's team lost.

As they transmatted back to the Derelict for payment, Jayesh gestured to Phoenix. The ghost opened a private channel to Nell. Jayesh said, "Man, you got spanked."

"Shut up," Nell retorted. "You saw what happened. They shut us down. Man! I could choke somebody."

"You still get paid."

"So what?" Nell broke the connection.

Jayesh laughed a little. "She's too mad to talk right now."

"I'll say." Phoenix looked at him as Jayesh straightened, taking his feet off the control panel. "We headed home?"

"Set course for Earth," Jayesh agreed. "I have a fat load of glimmer for the bank, and a nice dinner out with Kari and Connor." As the ship wheeled about in preparation for its jump, he added, "And a guitar. I want to buy one for practice."

"I like that idea," Phoenix said. "But be careful, Jay. Your music works on more than just you."

Jayesh snorted. "My team liked the tune, that's all."

"It was more than just music."

"It didn't even make my fire work, Phoenix. It was just a song."

Phoenix didn't want to argue with his guardian, so he said nothing more. But he carried scan data of Jayesh's team's performance before and after the song, and he knew conclusively that it had affected them all.


	10. Chapter 10: Meetings

Grant-4 paced back and forth in his apartment in the Tower, the afternoon following the Gambit match. He'd shed his armor and was down to a shirt and trousers. Not that the armor had done any good. Nell had gone after Donovan, mistaking him for Grant, and Donovan had showed no mercy.

"What am I to do, Sentry?" Grant said, turning to his ghost. "I assumed Nell would consult the roster and see which fighter I was. Now she thinks I destroyed her in that match. Did you see her at the end? She hates me."

"You might attempt to speak to her," Sentry suggested. "Be gentle. Explain how that wasn't you."

Grant ran a hand over his charcoal-black metal head, forcing the spiky antennae to retract. He glared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. "Look at me, Sentry. Whether in armor or out of it, I'm monstrous. She's right to despise me. I'm this ..." He held up both metal hands, the fingers curled like claws. "This beast of a machine. Not human. Not really." He crumpled onto his bed and pulled his pillow over his face.

Sentry floated nearby, her blue and gold shell drooping, her eye emoting sadness. "I wish this hadn't happened. We never should have played Gambit."

Grant threw the pillow aside and looked up at her, his orange eyes dim. "I didn't realize I would come to admire an opponent. I assumed it was only a game. How very wrong I was." He rolled over to face the wall. "She was harmed. She blames me. Oh Nell, I'm so sorry."

Sentry watched his anguish, sharing it. More than anything, she wished to make her guardian happy. But this situation had her at a loss. How did one solve such a problem, save by communication? There had been precious little between Grant and Nell.

She was a ghost. Communication was her job.

Sentry sent a query to Hadrian, requesting a private link. After a moment, Hadrian granted it, communicating through the Light, itself. "Hello, Sentry."

"Hello," she said hesitantly. "My guardian wishes yours to know ... he was not the invader in black. That was Donovan Moorehead. Grant wore Vanguard colors."

Hadrian didn't answer for several minutes, but he didn't break the connection. Sentry hung there in midair, watching Grant lie there in misery, wondering what Hadrian was telling Nell. Surely Nell would understand.

Hadrian finally spoke again. "She just consulted the roster, herself, and confirmed. She is angry, and I think, confused. She demands to know why Grant switched colors."

"Grant," Sentry said softly, "I'm communicating with Nell's ghost. She wants to know why you changed your armor."

Grant rolled over and sat up, gazing avidly at Sentry. "Tell her ..." He rubbed the side of his head, struggling with the words. "Tell her that I wanted to show her that I meant her no harm."

Sentry relayed this. After a moment, Hadrian replied, "She is still angry. And confused. She doesn't understand. Did you conspire with your teammate to kill her with such brutality?"

When Sentry relayed this, Grant jumped to his feet. "No!" he shouted, the orange lights in his mouth at maximum brightness. "I never intended for Donovan to kill her. She targeted him."

Hadrian was quiet for some time. Grant resumed pacing, fretting.

"She's yelling," Hadrian reported. "A lot. She's convinced that your entire team was against her. She did lose, you know."

Grant opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. He sat on the bed and rubbed both hands over his face. "Please ... ask if we might meet in person. If she would only allow me to explain. I could show her that I ..." He opened his hands and stared at them. "I'm not as monstrous as I appear."

Sentry passed this along. After a moment, she said, "Hadrian recommends a week's time, at least. Nell needs to calm down. But perhaps next Wednesday? We'll arrange a meeting location."

"Yes, yes," Grant said. "Please."

Sentry confirmed this with Hadrian, then closed the link. "My dear Guardian," she murmured, flying around Grant, playing a healing beam over his head and shoulders. "I wish I could do more. Nell is angry and frightened. But maybe, once she has time to think about it ..."

Grant ran his fingertips over Sentry's shell. "My good girl," he whispered. "Always helping. Thank you. We'll see what happens."

* * *

"I don't want to meet with him!" Nell stormed. She stomped around her room, kicking her bloodstained armor and cloak against the wall. She wore a tank top and cutoff shorts that had once been pants, but were too shredded to patch.

Hadrian floated near the ceiling, out of danger. "He didn't kill you today. He stayed far from you, in fact."

"Doesn't mean he didn't set things up with his buddy," Nell growled. "They stomped us, Hadrian! And that Donovan jerk killed me so many times. I thought he was Grant. But he did fight differently." She trailed off, remembering those encounters. Donovan was one of those Titans who shoulder-charged everything. He'd trampled her like a charging rhino multiple times. At least Grant usually used weapons or his Light. She'd thought it strange that Grant had changed his fighting style. Now she knew. He'd switched gear on her.

But the more she thought about it, the more baffled she became. "Grant was wearing the Vanguard stuff! In Gambit! Why did he do that?"

"He said it was to show you he didn't want to hurt you," Hadrian said.

"It's Gambit," Nell said. "That's the game. Why would he even play if he didn't mean to hurt people?" She paced some more, thinking about the match. "He never invaded, did he? It was only ever the other guy."

"I think Grant's feelings for you are quite serious," Hadrian said.

Nell made a sound halfway between a roar and a scream. She grabbed fistfuls of her own black hair and pulled. "This is so maddening! I want to _kill_ him! But then I _don't_ want to kill him! Why is this happening? He's not even a real person!" She threw herself on her bed and lay there, arms spread.

Hadrian flew down and floated above her. "Exos are people."

"Robots," Nell said wearily. "Jayesh already yelled at me over this."

Hadrian's blue eye emoted sadness. "Well ... if you don't think Grant is a person ... am I not a person, either?"

"Oh, Hadrian." Nell scooped him out of the air and kissed him. "You're my ghost. Of course ghosts are people."

She let him go, and he floated beside her, over the pillow. "But ... Exos have to be people," Hadrian said. "Ghosts can bond to them. They have a spark. A soul. They couldn't be Guardians, otherwise."

Nell opened her mouth to argue, and stopped. It was such a simple observation, but it was also rock-solid evidence. Ghosts bonded to Exos. They couldn't be only machines, then. There was something human left inside that metal frame, something living and feeling and thinking.

And one of these human-machines thought he had feelings for Nell, to the point of switching Gambit roles.

"How does that even work?" she said suddenly. "A relationship with an Exo. Can you kiss one? They don't have lips! Only, like, those jaw plates."

"Maybe they don't kiss," Hadrian said. "I've seen Exos give hugs."

"Wouldn't that hurt? I mean, they're metal. They squeeze a little too hard and splat. Like a bug."

Hadrian found that funny. He laughed so hard, he fell out of the air and bounced across the bed. Nell sat up and watched him. "It's a serious question!"

Hadrian floated back into the air, spinning his shell as if it helped him float. "I know, it was just the way you said it. I've never seen anyone die from an Exo hug, all right? I think they can be gentle. Like you." He gave her a smile with both his shell and his eye emote. "You could crush me in your hands. I know how strong you are. But you handle me very gently. I'm never afraid that you might hurt me."

Nell gazed at him a long moment, considering this. Then she sighed. "What if I go meet Grant, and he changes his mind and tries to kill me? What do I do, then?"

"Don't go alone," Hadrian said. "Take Jayesh."

Nell snorted. "Jayesh is already on Grant's side. I'll see if Liran, Nessa, and Cidrex will go. Triangulate our position, shoot Grant if he gets hostile. Hm. We'd better not do this meet up in the Tower."

"Why not out in the EDZ?" Hadrian suggested. "It's a hot patrol zone right now, with the Fallen withdrawn. Guardians are really exploring the area. We should get clearance no problem."

"Tell Grant, then," Nell said. "And invite my team. Tell them to come armed. And ... damn it, Hadrian, my good knives are notched after that last match. See what's for sale. And see what a good hand cannon costs. I need to upgrade my gear."

"All right," Hadrian replied.

* * *

Jayesh treated his family to a nice outing in the City. Kari appreciated it, but fretted about how easily he had come by so much glimmer playing Gambit. She worried that he'd play more and more whenever money grew tight.

Jayesh assured her that he had no desire to play Gambit any more. "I can support us doing my regular Vanguard assignments, lovelight. It's all right. Don't worry. It's not good for the baby."

Kari's morning sickness was beginning to creep in. Over the next few days, she spent more and more time on the sofa or in bed, making frequent dashes to the restroom. Jayesh managed meals and kept Connor out of her way. He contrived to take the toddler to the City park several times.

Charles was able to meet him there sometimes. The young hunter brought his own child, who was happy to crawl on the grass and eat sand.

"I picked up a guitar," Jayesh said. "I've been practicing a bit, but I'm so bad, my wife complains. She's down with morning sickness and noise irritates her."

"Well then," Charles said, grinning from under his mop of sandy hair. "Let's help you get good."

The playground visits turned into guitar lessons, then into impromptu jam sessions. Charles taught Jayesh simple rhythm pieces, then played melody against it. Other parents around the playground moved closer to listen.

Jayesh's synesthesia was still present, but it didn't drown him, as it once had. He saw the music in bright colors, and sometimes tasted it on the back of his tongue like savory spices. One particular song smelled sharply of new-mown hay. But he was able to push through it, concentrate on the chords and finger positions.

Charles kept teaching him new things, too. During one session, he produced a strange-looking strap and wound it around the strings at the end of the guitar's neck. "This is a capo. It changes the pitch. Listen." Charles strummed, and the guitar produced notes an octave higher than before. Jayesh saw it as magenta. They traded guitars, and Jayesh tried it out, experimenting with different chords and their new sounds.

Something about this new key stirred something within him. A sense of familiarity, a feeling of home, of welcoming that he couldn't quite remember. Was it memory? Or something deeper? He bent his head over the guitar and listened to the chords, trying to draw out the melody. One chord was right. Then the next. Then the next.

"Oh, a minor key," Charles said. "What song is that?"

Jayesh didn't answer. He was too focused on the fingering, playing the music inside his head, bringing it to life. The crazy color and taste of the music sharpened, like cold wind and fresh snow, blue and white and black.

Words went with it. Jayesh sang them very softly - words in a language he didn't remember that he knew. He sang a few bars, the syllables rolling off his tongue, before he halted and looked up, embarrassed.

"Don't stop!" Charles said.

But as soon as Jayesh stopped, the music and words vanished from his mind. He played the chords again, and it wasn't the same.

"What was that?" Charles asked. "What language?"

"I don't know," Jayesh said. "It went with the music. Maybe it's from my past life. Do you think I was a musician?"

"Maybe!" Charles said. "I'm pretty sure I was." He took back his guitar and picked out a complicated set of notes, as if playing his own thoughts. After a moment, he said, "You have a good voice. Ever tried singing harmony?"

"Not really," Jayesh said. "Never tried singing much at all until recently."

"We ought to dig into that, next," Charles said, grinning. "I think we're both tenors, so it'll be fun."

Jayesh nodded and grinned, picking up his guitar again. Whatever that song had been, it had come from a place deep inside him, perhaps the person he had once been. And it was linked with his Light in a strange way he couldn't define. He was eager to ask Phoenix's opinion once they were alone.

But alone time wasn't easy to manage. When it was time to go home, Connor was tired and cranky. Jayesh took him home and made a belated dinner of sandwiches for them both. Then Kari appeared, looking haggard, and had one, too.

Once Connor was in bed, Jayesh and Kari snuggled together on the sofa. He told her about his strange breakthrough and tried to describe how it felt.

Phoenix phased into being nearby. "I felt that!" he exclaimed. "It was definitely some kind of Sunsinger thing. You were singing in Newar, which makes sense, because I found you in the Himalayas. It's like ... it's like it will take your whole being to be a Sunsinger, including your old life."

"Is that possible?" Kari said.

"I don't know," Phoenix replied. "The Vanguard records show people being resurrected as Sunsingers. Nobody has become one since the Traveler awakened."

Jayesh listened, thinking. He stroked Kari's hair and gazed at the far wall. "I think you're right," he said at last. "Being a Dawnblade took my entire being. I loved it, and it worked. A guardian in the Reef said that it aligned with my personality. So ... when I lost it ... I lost myself. I've been trying to find out who I am again. Gambit. This job with the weapon forge. The Praxic Order. The music. I think I'm finding pieces of myself. I just don't know how to put them together. I was singing in Newar ... that's a piece I didn't even know I had."

Kari leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "I don't think you're as lost as you think, heartspark."

"I'm not?"

"No. Because I can feel you healing me."

Jayesh straightened. "I'm healing you? How? Will it hurt the baby?"

"Calm down," she told him peaceably. "It's very subtle. I don't think you could do it for anyone else. But as I'm sitting here, the nausea is calming down. I can feel a faint aura of healing radiating from you. It feels good." She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder again. "It's your love, Jay."

He curled his arms around her waist and held her, nervous. When she had been pregnant with Connor, they had been extremely careful to use no Light powers in case of causing a miscarriage. And now he was healing her without meaning to. "Phoenix? Neko? Make sure she's safe."

Their two ghosts scanned them both.

"He is radiating a little Light," Phoenix said. "Barely enough to register."

"Her discomfort is definitely fading," Neko said, zipping back and forth to scan Kari from different directions. "It's very slow. Barely a trickle. I'm detecting no problems with the child, so it's probably all right."

Both ghosts scanned Jayesh.

"You think it's his Seed of Light?" Phoenix said.

"Maybe," Neko said thoughtfully, twirling his royal blue shell. "It feels more specialized than that. I want to say it's a Sunsinger thing, but he's not my Guardian."

"I think you're right," Phoenix said. He emoted a smile at Jayesh. "Your power is working."

"It may be working," Jayesh replied, "but I'm not controlling it. I don't like that. I could hurt everyone around me." He tucked a strand of hair behind Kari's ear. "What if my power went off in my sleep and I hurt you?"

She looked up at him. "It's not like that, Jay. We're attuned to each other. You're giving me Light in a way only we can do."

A little warmth spread up his neck and into his cheeks. "Oh. Is that what they're calling it now?"

"Shh." She kissed him, then relaxed against him again. "I feel well for the first time in days. Don't wreck it."

Jayesh held her until she fell asleep and he nearly did. Then they staggered off to bed and fell asleep in each other's arms. He passively healed her all night and awoke feeling nearly as tired as he had when he'd gone to bed.

Kari, on the other hand, felt perfect. She breezed around the apartment, doing chores and singing, when she wasn't talking to Connor. Jayesh saw her voice in vivid mental images of leaves and flowers, tasted it as chocolate and nectar.

"I'm not well yet," he muttered to Phoenix.

"Oh, so what?" Phoenix said. "Sing with her."

So they sang together until they were laughing too much to go on.

"I could listen to them for hours," Neko sighed, watching from behind the sofa.

Phoenix floated beside his brother. "Jayesh is all scrambled inside, like the tumblers of a lock. He hasn't found the right combination to unlock himself, yet."

"But when he does," Neko said, "you'd better watch out."

Phoenix spun his shell aggressively. "I can't wait."


	11. Chapter 11: He was being nice

Nell went down into the Last City to pick up the new weapons she'd ordered.

She wore civilian clothes for a change, jeans and a blouse, with boots. It was a warm spring day, and down on the City streets, it was even warmer.

She and Hadrian wandered through a commercial district, window shopping, and gazing in wonder at the traffic and other pedestrians. "I forget there's so many people here," Nell told her ghost. "So many kinds of people, too." She grinned. "And it's my job to keep them safe. I like that."

"That's what being a Guardian is all about," Hadrian agreed. "Well, and protecting the Traveler." He nodded at the great moon-like orb in the sky overhead, orbited by its own debris field.

A female Exo walked by. Nell turned to watch her, one hand dropping to her belt, where she usually carried her daggers. She'd left them at home today, not wanting to seem threatening, but Hadrian could transmat them to her in an instant.

The Exo woman walked on by without giving Nell a glance. She was dressed in slacks and a sweater. Had Nell not seen her metal face, she wouldn't have known she was an Exo at all.

"Jumpy?" Hadrian said from his spot above her left shoulder.

Nell forced herself to relax. "Maybe a little."

As she walked on, Hadrian said, "Exos are people, Nell. Don't forget."

"I keep trying to remember that," Nell replied. "Man, I wish Cayde was still alive. I could talk to him about the whole Exo thing. I don't know any others."

She loitered down the sidewalk, looking in the shop windows at fancy clothing, the latest books, stacks of candy, a restaurant full of people eating lunch, and a hair salon with women having their hair styled.

"That'd be fun to try," Nell said, touching her black hair. "My hair is so straight and boring. Maybe I could grow it out and have it dyed."

"What color?"

"Cherry red."

Hadrian gave her a critical look. "All your hair? I don't think that would be a good look for you."

"Oh really?" Nell said, turning to grin at him. "Since when are you such an expert?"

"I think it would look better with streaks," Hadrian said. "Keep some of it your natural color, but add highlights. I think you'd look killer."

Nell patted his shell. "And you're adorable. I'll think about it."

They wandered on, burning time until it was time to pick up Nell's weapons. Then she summoned her sparrow and joined the traffic on the roads, headed out to District 35, on the outskirts, next to the wall.

The neighborhoods grew poorer and more run down as she left the populated center. Many of them had been hastily rebuilt after the Red War, and the prefabricated buildings were ugly.

One such building had the address she was hunting. She parked her sparrow and Hadrian transmatted it home. She stood on the grimy sidewalk, looking up at a concrete building with one door and no windows. The address was correct, but it looked like a great place to get mugged or kidnapped.

"Better hide, Hadrian," Nell said. "In case things get scary."

He disappeared. His voice said in her head, "There's only two people inside. I'm also picking up a lot of machinery. Looks like a workshop. I don't think you have anything to worry about."

Reassured, Nell knocked on the single door.

After a moment, the door clicked and opened a crack. A man's eye blinked at her through the crack. "Yes?"

"I'm here to pick up an order," Nell said. "I'm Guardian Nell."

"Right, right." The man undid a safety chain and swung the door open. "Come in, then."

Hadrian had been right-inside the building was a shop filled with machines. It smelled of hot metal and grease. Boxes of weapon parts stood everywhere, and her attention went to a huge lathe spinning nearby. Another man stooped over it, grinding at a metal part. He wore a welding mask and didn't look up, but his huge frame seemed familiar, somehow.

The man waiting on her was shorter, with the edges of a tattoo showing on his neck, under his sweat-stained shirt. He led her through the shop to a table with a row of finished, gleaming weapons lying in rows on a cloth. Three different types of rifles, and a handful of knives. The two she had ordered were at the end, their blades mirror-bright. The handles were polished wood and wrapped with leather.

She picked them up and turned them over, admiring them. "These are works of art!"

"Thank you," said the smith. "There's a dummy over there, if you'd like to try them out."

A somewhat shredded wooden dummy stood in the corner. It looked like lots of customers had tested their knives on it. Nell did, too, reveling in the feeling of the blades piercing the solid wood. "Oh yeah, I love them already."

As she slid the knives into tooled leather sheaths, she asked, "Is my hand cannon ready, too?"

"Yes, over here," said the smith. He led her to another table, where the parts for several guns were laid in orderly rows. Two pistols lay side by side. One was a serviceable SR-37 hand cannon. The other was the same model, but inlaid with white ivory in patterns like tree branches. It swirled along both sides of the barrel and into the handle, which was entirely smooth bone.

"What is this beauty?" Nell exclaimed, picking up the ivory cannon. As it slid into her hand, it felt reassuring and right, as if it was meant for her.

The smith looked uncomfortable. "That's, ah, a special order. I shouldn't have left it out. You have to request modifications like these."

Nell ran her fingers along the ivory inlay, delight growing in her. "Can I have this one? I'll pay extra."

"No, sorry," the smith replied with a pained smile. "Another client is picking this up today. You can order more mods for your own weapon, though." He lifted the vanilla pistol and held it out.

Nell took the other weapon and held them side by side. The other pistol was only a piece of metal. The ivory cannon seemed to leap with life, flowing and eager. She'd never miss, she was certain. The gun wouldn't let her.

"What's the white part made of?" she asked. "Is it expensive?"

"Oh, uh," the smith said. "That's bone from the _xenokrillus chivalrous_. It's a renewable resource. Humanely farmed."

Nell nodded, smiling. "How much would it cost to add this kind of decoration to my gun?"

"Another eight grand."

"I want it," Nell said. "All in advance?"

The smith looked nonplussed and overjoyed at the same time. "Half up front, half when you pick up."

"Done." Nell paid the man, without noticing that she filled out no paperwork of any kind. She also didn't set down the ivory cannon until the smith reminded her. It already felt like an extension of her arm.

With a sigh, she laid the gun back on its cloth, and her own dead, metal gun, too. "It feels so alive. I hate to leave it here. Make sure the owner treats it kindly."

She looked up to see the smith gazing at her with a strange expression, almost fearful.

"I'll make sure to let them know," he said. "Will that be all for you today?"

After that he was overly gracious and friendly in an attempt to hasten her departure. Nell left with her new knives, but not without a regretful backward glance at that ivory pistol.

Once she was back in the sidewalk, Hadrian said, "Do you know what_ xenokrillus chivalrous_ is?"

"Some kind of alien?" Nell said.

"Hive Knight." Hadrian sounded grim. "It was the prettiest weapon of sorrow I've ever seen."

Nell froze. "That was a weapon of sorrow? The guns that kill guardians and whisper to you?" She turned and stared at the door. "I just paid for one."

On one hand, she felt like she'd just handled a poisonous snake and somehow escaped without being bitten. On the other hand, it had felt so good, like it was a part of herself. She took a step toward the door, thinking of canceling her order, and stopped. "Don't they have to use a certain kind of bullet to kill a Guardian?"

"I think so," Hadrian replied.

"Can they fire regular bullets?"

"Probably."

"Then I'll just use regular bullets," Nell said. "Think how fast it'll kill aliens. It doesn't have to be used on Guardians. I'll leave it at home during Gambit games."

"What about the whispers?" Hadrian said.

Nell snorted. "I survived the Voice of Riven, didn't I? And Riven herself. For a dragon, she never shuts the hell up. I can handle a few whispers."

She summoned her sparrow and rode home, but couldn't shake a feeling that she was committing a crime.

* * *

Grant-4 arrived back in the Tower after a two-day patrol on Venus. His mechanical body wasn't tired, exactly, but his mind was ready for a rest. All he wanted to do was sit still for a while, preferably with a snack close to hand.

He took off his armor and dressed in casual clothes. There were many models of Exo, but Grant was fortunate enough to be one of the later Clovis Bray models. His body was sleek and woven together without a lot of extra jagged corners, especially his joints. Putting on clothes wasn't as difficult for him as it was for some Exos.

It was mid afternoon, and the Tower cafe was mostly empty, the tables and chairs tidy, waiting for the dinner rush. Only one guardian was there. He had pulled a chair to the Tower railing and sat with his feet propped up on it, playing the guitar in his lap. The soft chords floated to Grant on the breeze.

The Exo bought a plate of fried potatoes, onions, and dip, and carried them to a table near the guardian with the guitar. He was surprised to recognize Jayesh, the kind warlock who was friends with Nell. Grant waved. Jayesh acknowledged him with a nod and kept playing.

Grant ate slowly, relishing the peace and quiet. His mechanical body was designed to take in food as a fuel source, burning it so efficiently it produced almost no waste. It also meant he didn't have to eat as often as a human. But he had spent his entire patrol without food, and he was hungry.

After a while, Jayesh straightened and sat up, setting the guitar back into its case at his feet.

"Want some?" Grant offered, pointing at his platter.

"Sure." Jayesh dragged his chair to the table. "How's it going, Grant?"

"Can't complain," Grant replied. "Just came off patrol. Venus is a strange place. I'm fairly certain I saw a dragon above the jungles."

Jayesh raised an eyebrow. "I thought the Ahamkara were extinct."

"I'm not certain it was an Ahamkara," Grant replied. "But it was certainly a large winged reptile with a long tail. Beautiful in flight."

They ate a few bites in companionable silence. Then Grant said, "You play guitar?"

"Learning," Jayesh said. "Helps me focus my Light." He gazed across the Last City to the Traveler in the distance with a wistful expression.

Grant tilted his head to one side. "Is your Light unfocused, then?"

"I was hurt in the Dreaming City," Jayesh replied. "I lost my Dawnblade. I used to be able to communicate with the Traveler, and I lost that, too. I'm trying to regain it, but ... it's been hard."

"You could communicate with the Traveler?" Grant said in disbelief, glancing at the orb hanging in the sky. "What did it say?"

Jayesh smiled. "Never what I wanted to hear. It's ... so different from how we think. It always spoke to me with a male avatar, and he ... he's busy fighting battles we don't know about. I think Earth is shielded in more ways than we understand. Especially now that the Traveler is awakened. But I can't hear it anymore, or it can't hear me. I was hoping my music ..." He trailed off and gazed at the Traveler again.

Grant caught the loneliness in Jayesh's posture, the way one hand clasped the buckle across his chest, the way his eyes seemed to seek a friend he had lost. It spoke to Grant's own loneliness, his lack of any real friends, his unrequited love for a girl he barely knew.

"I understand," Grant said.

Jayesh glanced at him. "You do?"

Grant smiled, which shifted the metal plating of his face a little. "I, too, have a person in my life I wish to speak to, but cannot. All that's left is silence in your heart."

"Yes," Jayesh said slowly, looking at Grant as if he'd never seen him before. "Yes, that's exactly it." He hesitated, then added, "Things aren't working out between you and Nell?"

Grant shook his head. "Not after that last Gambit match. I'm not certain if you noticed, but I wore different armor and refused to invade. I had no wish to harm her further, you see. But my teammate, Donovan, wore black instead ... and then my team defeated hers ... she is angry. I contacted her and tried to explain. She agreed to meet with me tomorrow, in the EDZ. But I fear there may be more bullets than words used."

Jayesh didn't respond for a while. He leaned back in his chair and gazed at the Traveler. "Donovan," he muttered. "Moorehead?"

"Yes. You are acquainted?"

"A little." Jayesh fell silent again.

Grant finished off the fried onion and set to work on the fries. It was a relief to have someone understand. Perhaps he wasn't as sickeningly alone as he'd always assumed.

"I haven't talked to Nell in a while," Jayesh said at last. "Not since Gambit, when she was so mad. Maybe I'd better make the effort. Now - your teammate, Donovan. How well do you know him?"

Grant shrugged. "Not terribly well. We typically share a Gambit team. He's a Titan. We don't interact outside of Gambit much at all. I've been taking Vanguard assignments, which have been solo."

"Do you know a human called Tanner? With a tattoo on his neck?"

"I'm sorry, no."

Jayesh sat back in his chair and studied the sky again, tugging his lower lip in thought. After a moment, he said, "Whereabouts in the EDZ are you headed?"

"West of the Shard, I believe. The coordinates are for a field there where we can land our jumpships. Near a small river."

Jayesh stared at Grant. "Near the Volundr forge?"

Grant shook his head. "I don't know what that is, sorry."

Jayesh shook his head. "Nell, what are you doing?" he muttered. Louder, he said, "Look, I don't know what's going on, but watch your back. Nell may be planning an ambush or something. She's terrified of you, you know."

"Yes," Grant said. "It's why I wished to speak with her. But she may not give me the opportunity."

"I'll do what I can," Jayesh said. "Light blast that girl. Keep your ghost hidden, Grant. I don't like this at all."

Grant studied the warlock, troubled. "Do you know something I should know?"

Jayesh opened both hands. "Only a feeling. Nothing about this lines up. And I know a little more about Donovan Moorehead than you do. Wear armor. Be careful. All right?"

"All right," Grant said slowly.

* * *

That evening, Jayesh was quiet and brooding. He sat at his desk in the bedroom he shared with Kari, gazing at maps of the European Dead Zone in silence.

Kari was already in bed with her tablet, lying on her side to ease her ever-present nausea. "Coming to bed soon, Jay?"

"Soon," he replied absently.

"What are you researching?"

He didn't respond for a moment. Then he seemed to realize she'd asked a question and swiveled his chair to face her. "I think Nell is going to try to kill Grant-4."

Kari blinked. "Wow. What makes you think that?"

Jayesh recounted his conversation with Grant. "Then I tried contacting Nell, but she wouldn't speak to me. Her ghost was apologetic."

Kari rested a hand on her stomach, which had already developed a tiny bulge. "And you're going to jump in the middle and get yourself hurt. Just when you were recovering from last time."

Jayesh bowed his head.

"Jay, please just leave it," Kari begged. "Let them sort it out. They're both adults, for the Traveler's sake. This isn't the Reef. You don't have to be the fire team's conscience anymore."

"But I feel responsible," he protested. "I kind of set them both up."

"So let them work it out!" Kari exclaimed. "Jay, I need you. Connor needs you. You're getting well and your Light is coming back. I don't want to lose you again. Not after ..." She trailed off and bit her lower lip, trying to hold back tears. "Not after I found you in the hall with your eyes torn out, and no ghost."

Jayesh sighed heavily. He undressed and crawled into bed beside her, pulling her into his arms. "I'm going out there tomorrow, anyway," he said. "I have forge guard duty. I'll try not to interfere in their little love-fest. But if things get out of control, I'll ..."

"You'll what?" Kari said. "Your Light's not stable yet."

"I'll call the Praxic Order," Jayesh said. "Nell could use a little sense drummed into her."

Kari lay there, thinking about this. "You're out there doing unsanctioned work at the forge. What if the Praxic Order arrest you, too?"

"Donovan has paperwork saying we're allowed to be there." Jayesh stroked her auburn hair. "Whether he faked it or not, I have no idea. I'm not asking a lot of questions."

"Are they building weapons of sorrow?"

"Not at the forge. I have my suspicions, but I haven't actually seen any evidence - no bone or anything. For all I know, we're doing official work for the Black Armory."

Kari smiled and relaxed against him, feeling his healing aura beginning to soothe away her nausea. "Shady as it is, I'm glad you're not involved in actual criminal activities."

"Me too," he said softly.

* * *

Nell paced back and forth in the dappled shade beneath the trees of the European Dead Zone. The Shard of the Traveler rose in the distance, surrounded by smoke and haze, as usual.

Her friends, Nessa, Cidrex, and Liran, stood nearby, watching her.

"Grant will be here soon," Nessa said.

"I know," Nell growled. "I had two different plans and neither of them will work." She spun to face her friends. "Because you brought those!"

Each of her friends carried a bone-studded hand cannon. Cidrex's had a familiar ivory inlay and a bone grip. Nell envied him intensely and wished she didn't.

"We don't have Devourer Bullets," Nessa pointed out. "They can't consume Light without them."

Cidrex pulled out his pistol and twirled it. "They'll mess you up, though. Isn't that why we're here? To mess up Grant one more time?"

"I don't know," Nell snarled, returning to pacing. "If he attacks me, yeah, blow him full of holes. But if he doesn't, then leave him alone." She stood with her back to them a moment, watching the sky for an incoming ship. Then she faced them again. "All right, which of you hear the whispers?"

The team didn't answer, but exchanged uncomfortable glances.

"All of you?" Nell exclaimed. "You idiots! They'll drive you mad, you know that, right? It was bad enough when the freaking dragon was whispering to me. They'll make you kill things. The gun will decide, not you."

"Hey," Liran said through her ghost, stepping forward. The Awoken warlock's eyes glowed with a fierce light. "We're out here to help you. If you want to take your chances without us, just say so."

Nell glared at her for a moment, then dropped her eyes. "Stay, then," she mumbled. "At least until we know how this will go."

The distant rumble of an approaching ship reached their ears.

"Here he comes!" Nell said. "Hide, all of you."

She stood in the open and watched as Grant's jumpship swept down and landed in the field near Nell's. Her friends had landed their ships a mile away and rode in on their sparrows. As far as Grant knew, it was only the two of them.

Nell waited, fingering the hilts of her new knives. She had worn her combat hunter gear, all leather with sturdy steel breastplate and gauntlets. Yet, when Grant approached, clad in his Titan armor in Vanguard blue and orange, her heart sank. He had come prepared to fight, too. This would be one more invader verses invader fight, not a conversation.

He raised a hand in greeting and pulled off his helmet. Nell's heart jolted a little at the sight of his black metal, orange eyes, and spike-like antennae._ Enemy,_ her subconscious whispered. _Kill._ Her right hand gripped a dagger's hilt.

_No_, she told herself. _Not this time. Relax._ She forced her hand to release her dagger, then slowly paced toward the imposing Exo.

Grant waited for her, standing there, arms at his sides. As she drew nearer, he said, "Hello, Nell." His mouth lit with orange light. She'd seen artwork of demons that looked just like that.

Her heart pounded against her ribs. She halted six feet away, unable to force herself any closer to her enemy. "Hello," she said, her mouth suddenly dry.

"I'd like to apologize," Grant said. "Gambit has forced us to battle each other, and planted fear where there should have been friendship. I have no desire ever to harm you again. Therefore, our last match was my final one. I shall not play Gambit any longer."

Nell gasped a little. She had planned to threaten him, force him to drop out of Gambit. And he was quitting of his own accord? She clawed for purchase inside her own brain, trying to understand, trying to decide how to react. Anger? No - she was glad. Was she glad? She didn't feel glad, only shocked, and a little disappointed. And - and something else she didn't know how to think about.

"Jayesh said you have a crush on me," she blurted. "That's why you're quitting?"

Grant nodded. "I deeply admire you. I suppose one might call it a crush. However, I had no intention of burdening you with my feelings. I wish only to apologize, especially for that last match. Donovan made a hash of things, I'm afraid."

A hurricane of half-formed thoughts whirled through Nell's brain. Why did he talk like that? Was he faking an accent, or was he really some kind of educated European? What had he been before he became an Exo? If he really admired her, why didn't he let her win more often?

The last thought won through. "How can you admire me while killing me?" she blurted. "You could have just let me win."

"Isn't that against the rules?" Grant replied. "I played to win. You were only another opponent ... until we reached top rank. Then I began to wonder how such a fine, delicate woman like yourself could consistently destroy my team."

"Fine? Delicate?" Nell forced a laugh. "I could tear your head off if I wanted."

"I have no doubt," Grant agreed soberly. "I was referring to the difference between our heights and builds."

Nell saw what he meant. She was a head shorter than he was, and half as broad. Clad in her close-fitting armor, she presented a slim, feminine profile. She looked down at herself and was suddenly embarrassed, and had no idea why.

The feeling made her angry - angry at him for making her feel this way, angry at herself for having so many feelings that she couldn't think, angry at her friends and their illegal weapons, angry at Jayesh for being so damn reasonable all the time.

She drew a knife and pointed at Grant with it. "I'll have you know that it hurts to die. Especially to your stupid lightning punch thing. So many times I'd be laying there with my neck broken, listening to you kill my team, and I wanted to hurt you back."

"You did," Grant replied. "An Exo can feel pain. I am told that my model, in particular, has an advanced neurosensory system. I feel physical sensation. That includes pain." He lifted a hand to his neck. "Dying to a cut throat is as unpleasant for me as it is for you."

Nell had never thought about Grant feeling pain. He was all metal and wires, so how could he? This revelation came as an unpleasant shock. "You could ... feel that?"

He nodded. "Gambit is a rough game. I died many times, to many things. But you were the most frustrating. You are so _small_ and yet so _lethal_. At first, I was angry at you. Then I began to marvel at you. How could a fighter like you be so quick and deadly?"

"Let me guess," Nell said, lifting the knife defensively. "You want to try taking me out. Right now."

"Not at all," Grant replied. "I merely wished to apologize ... and inform you that you need not fear me. I will never harm you again."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a hand cannon cracked from the trees nearby. Grant grunted and staggered backward, raising a hand to a hole in his chest.

Nell spun around. "Don't shoot!" she screamed. "What are you _doing_? He's being _nice_!"

Another gunshot. A bullet punched into Nell's chest plate and between her ribs. She gasped and fell, pain blasting through her senses.

"Who is shooting us?" Grant exclaimed. He strode forward and placed himself between Nell and the unseen enemy. A rifle appeared in his hands.

Nell looked up at the Titan, wounded, but still protecting her. And out of her maelstrom of feelings and thoughts, one rose above the others.

She had misjudged him.

More gunshots, but the bullets weren't aimed at them. Her team shouted at each other. Were they fighting among themselves? Nell tried to sit up, but pain lanced through her.

"Don't worry," Hadrian said in her head. "I've got this."

Her ghost's healing warmth touched the wound, itching as it forced the bullet out. Nell drew a rattling breath and struggled to her feet. She stepped around Grant, drawing her second knife. "Hadrian, what's happening -"

A rocket flew over the trees and detonated on the ground at their feet.

Death was so quick, Nell never had time to feel it. Her consciousness shifted to Hadrian's eye, where he caught her spark and prepared to resurrect her. As he hung in the air above her body, gathering the necessary Light, a group of figures stepped out of the trees. Not her team.

"Uh oh," Hadrian muttered.

One of the figures threw an object at him. It unfolded in midair, becoming a Praxic ghost capture ring. Hadrian refused to abandon Nell and flee, so the ring snapped shut around him.

Nell's consciousness blinked out.


	12. Chapter 12: Interrogation

Nell awakened slowly, in a dark place. She was resting comfortably in a chair of some kind, her head pillowed on the arm. No more pain. Quiet. She felt warm and drowsy, not quite awake.

"Hadrian?" she murmured.

"I'm sorry," said a voice nearby. "They took him."

Nell snapped wide awake. She wasn't in a chair - she was cradled in Grant's arms. They were locked in some kind of cell together, light shining through unmistakable prison bars.

She leaped away from him in one lightning movement and pressed herself against the far wall. Her hands searched for her knives and found them missing. Her Light was gone, too - the sense of constant warmth, like an almost-fever, had gone dark. She shivered with cold.

"Hadrian!" she cried. No friendly little voice answered her. Their connection was gone. Only a gaping void remained, as if she'd awakened with an arm amputated. It was like she'd returned to the days before he could speak to her, but worse. Her closest friend was gone.

She faced Grant across the cell. He sat on the floor in the shadows, an indistinct black shape with glowing orange eyes.

"Where's Hadrian?" she screamed in a whisper.

"Unharmed," Grant replied, the lights in his mouth flashing with each syllable. "We have been arrested by the Praxic Order. They allowed our ghosts to resurrect us here in this cell, then took them away." His voice dropped to a murmur. "My poor Sentry. She was so brave."

"Why did they take our ghosts?" Nell exclaimed.

Grant blinked at her. "They arrested everyone. Your team was hiding in the woods with weapons of sorrow." His eye-lights narrowed. "Were you planning to exterminate me, Nell?"

A wave of hot guilt and embarrassment crashed through her. Everyone arrested. Weapons of sorrow were illegal. Grant had found out. She was in prison. Hadrian was locked up somewhere else.

Nell's greatest terror since her resurrection had been imprisonment. She valued her freedom so highly, she had barely served the Vanguard, always doing her own thing, going wherever she wished, loyal only to her beloved ghost.

But they had taken him. And she was trapped in this tiny cell with the terrifying Exo she'd planned to stab in the back. The Praxic Order had caught her, and now they'd find her extensive Gambit record and probably the weapon of sorrow she had on order.

She slid down the wall and hugged her knees, shivering, beginning to gasp with panic. "We weren't going to kill you," she stammered. "Only if - if you attacked me. They weren't supposed to shoot. But they shot us. Who shot us? And who had a rocket launcher? Nobody had a rocket launcher!"

Tears were leaking into her voice. She shut her teeth with a snap, holding back that particular weakness. And her chest ached where that first bullet had hit. How did it still hurt? Hadn't she been healed?

"I see." Grant's voice was cold. "Treacherous. But good planning."

Nell cowered against the wall, staring at that monstrous black shape across the cell from her. If she stretched out her legs, their feet would touch. She had no Light, no weapons. If he wanted to kill her right now, she couldn't stop him. And he had every reason to kill her. She'd set him up to die permanently.

And she'd awakened in his lap. It didn't make sense. Why had he been holding her? Had he been trying to restrain her? But he'd let her jump up without resistance.

"Why were you holding me?" she blurted.

Grant looked down, the angle of his orange eyes changing. "They let my ghost resurrect me, first. They took her away. You were lying there, dead, and you looked so uncomfortable. I picked you up so you wouldn't have to revive on the concrete."

"Oh." That had been thoughtful. And kinder than she deserved. Nell hugged her knees like a shield. Hadrian. She wanted Hadrian, and he was gone. Her rudder was gone, the little moral compass timidly correcting her.

_Hadrian, what do I do?_ she cried inside her head. But there was no answer.

She'd have to imagine what he'd say. He'd look at her with his adoring blue eye and say, "Maybe you ought to apologize."

Ack. Even in her imagination, her ghost had her dead to rights. She gazed out of the cell, at the brick wall across the hall. It was easier than meeting those terrifying orange eyes. She drew a deep breath, but her tongue refused to form the words. Apologize. For what? Being mad that he'd beaten her in Gambit? For trying to kill him? But she hadn't been trying to kill him. Someone else had tried to kill them both.

Someone on her team.

The thought staggered her and made the cell spin in place. Who? Liran? Cidrex? Nessa? Someone had used their weapon of sorrow. And then a rocket launcher. Had they been fighting the Praxic Order? Or had somebody's weapon decided that a little death was in order?

Her spiraling, frantic thoughts suddenly went quiet, focusing on that one fact. _Someone had tried to kill them both_. Not the Praxic Order. Maybe not even her friends.

"Grant," she said, her voice trembling, "who killed us?"

He shifted positions a little, as if the question made him uncomfortable. "I'm not sure. My ghost was tracking several hostiles that that point. They were all running around, fighting each other. I'm not certain where the rocket came from. From the high trajectory, I almost want to say it was fired from a ship."

"A ship," Nell whispered. "Firing at us. Was it the Praxic Order?"

"I don't know. They've told me nothing. I imagine they're questioning the others."

"Oh Light, questioning," Nell moaned, wrapping her arms around her head. "They'll ask me why we were out there. And I have to admit to this whole embarrassing situation. Grant, I'm so sorry for getting you into this." The apology flowed out of her, simple and honest. Because suddenly, she was sorry. Painfully, achingly sorry for causing the whole stupid mess. They'd wring a confession out of her, and she'd have to confess to ...

Light blast _everything_ right now. They'd ask if she had feelings for Grant. Otherwise, why had she done all this? And she'd shout _n_o. How could she have feelings for a stupid robot who had killed her over and over? You didn't have feelings for a person you'd never spoken to. You didn't feel anything for an opponent in a game, except resentment.

Grant hadn't said anything, hadn't acknowledged her apology. He was staring at the floor.

Nell sat straighter and yelled, "And I don't have feelings for you, jerk!"

He flinched and looked up, startled.

Nell kept yelling. "You're a _robot_! How could anybody fall for a_ robot_? Nobody! And you killed me a zillion times and it _hurt_ and I _hate_ you! I'm sorry and you're sorry and that's _it_, end of story! No more! Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone!"

"Nell," he tried to break in.

But Nell's pent-up feelings were finally breaking loose. She leaped to her feet, fists clenched, and kept yelling. "Now they've taken Hadrian and he's the only friend I have in the stupid Vanguard! And it's your fault for wanting to talk to me! Why don't you leave me alone? I'm so sick of being killed and I'm glad you're out of Gambit! But now we're in jail and they'll probably _execute_ us _and_ our ghosts and -"

Her voice broke. Speaking the words had driven home her own fear - that her dear little ghost would be taken from her forever. Panic clawed at her throat. "Hadrian," she cried, spinning to the bars and wrenching at them. "Hadrian!"

Electrical shock jolted through her body. She jerked away from the bars and staggered backward until she hit the cell wall. She stood there, chest heaving with sobs, tears running down her face. Slowly she sank down until she was lying on the floor, hands over her face, and bawled.

Her anger fizzled out, leaving only black despair in its place. Her poor ghost, so abused and fearful, more than half Servitor, and so proud of Nell for being his guardian. If they killed him, she didn't know how she could keep living. But they'd probably kill her, too, so it didn't matter.

Grant moved nearby, crawling toward her. His cool metal hands slid around her, lifting her until she leaned against him. "Shh," he whispered. "It's all right."

Nell was too lost in misery to care that Grant was touching her. She did notice that he was wearing a shirt and shorts, which she thought vaguely odd for a robot. She rested her head against his chest, under his arm, and kept crying. She'd probably be dead in a few hours anyway, so what did it matter what happened now?

"They won't execute our ghosts," he murmured, stroking her hair. "Light, Nell, they don't even do that to actual Shadows of Yor. They try to rehabilitate them. Turn them back to the Light. You're not a servant of Darkness, are you?"

"No," she whispered between sobs. "I only ... only played Gambit because it was fun. I liked the Drifter. Hadrian's a fast healer. I couldn't ... can't fight without him. No other ghost is as quick as he is. But he's part Servitor ..." She clenched her fists in Grant's shirt. "What if they kill him because of that? Will they take him apart? He's so scared of being taken apart!"

"Shh," Grant whispered. "They'll question him, of course. They need to know if he's been corrupted. Does the Vanguard know he's part Servitor?"

"Yes." Nell hiccuped. "I was almost court-martialed because of him. He's on record as a special case."

"Well then." Grant's voice had a smile in it. "They'll look him up and it won't be a problem."

Nell slowly began to calm down, her sobs subsiding. Grant kept talking to her, stroking her hair, reassuring her that everything would work out, that they had been arrested as a precaution because someone had killed them. "They couldn't question us at the scene, but we were the victims, here. Notice how they have us in a completely different cell block than the rest of them. They're trying to keep us safe."

This was reassuring and frightening. "Who would want to kill us?"

"Do you have any enemies?" Grant asked.

Nell ran through her Gambit matches, all the times other guardians had yelled at her. She had laughed in their faces and dared them to try picking a fight. Nothing ever came of any of it.

"Well," she said unsteadily, "every Gambit team I've ever whipped might have it in for me."

Grant chuckled, the lights in his mouth casting a faint glow on the wall. "That certainly narrows it down."

She finally ventured to look up at him. From so close, against his side, under his arm, his face was both startling and more human than she had thought. The dim light reflected off the planes of his face. Aside from not having much nose, he looked fairly close to a human being, except for the eyes. And even the orange eyes, she realized, had pupils and irises. The pupils were dilated at the moment, just like her own, in an attempt to see in the dim cell.

She was sitting with Grant-4 - snuggled against him, more like - and he wasn't a fearsome monster. He was warm, like a human being. And if his body was harder than her own, under his shirt, it could have simply been muscle. His arm around her felt so comforting.

"Why are you being nice to me?" she asked, drying her face on her sleeve. Her armor was missing, and like Grant, she wore only the shorts and shirt she'd had on underneath. "I've been as mean as I could be. I yelled all that stuff at you."

His hand withdrew from her hair and rested against his leg. She gazed at the delicate joints of the fingers, like a sculpture of a human hand.

"Nell," he began, then sighed. "This isn't easy for me, either. Are you comfortable? Have I taken too great a liberty with your person?"

"It's fine," Nell said. And it was, although she didn't know why. He'd sworn never to hurt her again, but it was more than that, all tangled in the feelings she didn't understand. She reached out and touched his mechanical hand. He turned it over, and she placed her hand in his. The fingers curled over hers, gentle and moving as naturally as her own.

"I've been a guardian less than a year," Grant said. "Five months, I believe it is. I know so little of the Vanguard and the Last City, still. Sentry has been teaching me. I have no fireteam. I've played Gambit for the payout. I've admired you from a distance since our first encounter. You're quite infuriating, as I said before."

"That doesn't explain why you're being nice to me," Nell said. "I called you a robot."

"The proper term is cyborg," Grant said. "And ... you've lost your ghost. You're frightened and cornered. I'm surprised you did not assault me."

Nell shifted positions to better study Grant's face. There were expressions there, but she couldn't see him very well in the dim light. "You still haven't answered the question."

He looked down at her, his orange eyes holding a tender expression. "Because I love you."

Nell blinked. "How can you? You barely know me."

"Love is an act of will," Grant replied. "Not merely a feeling. It acts in concert with the mind and heart. My admiration of you prompted me to quit Gambit, despite it being my primary source of income. I love you, but I make no claim to you. You are free to go on with your life, once we are clear of this unpleasant incident."

"But ..." Nell hesitated. "Don't you want me to love you back?"

He smiled down at her - a real smile that flexed his face. "Of course I do. But I also wish you the best life and happiness you may have. And that life may not include me."

Nell's heart trembled. She wasn't ready for this sort of thing, not ready to cope with her own tangled feelings. Yet it was so peaceful, leaning against this mechanical man.

"I need Hadrian," she said at last. "I can't think about this right now. I need my ghost, and to not be in jail. But after that ... we'll see what happens."

They sat together in silence for a while, holding hands, Grant's arm around her. Nell found a quiet calm settling over her. After the storm of fear and rage had passed, she was left with a peace that stemmed from exhaustion. She was content to simply sit there with Grant, hold his hand, and wait. She gazed at the concrete wall outside the cell and thought about nothing.

After a long while, Grant said, "Someone's coming."

A door squeaked in the distance. Footsteps of multiple people clicked on the concrete floor. Nell climbed to her feet, and so did Grant. They stood at the bars, not touching the electrified metal, trying to see who was coming.

Three warlocks in Praxic gold and black appeared. The leader was a woman with dark skin, her hair pulled back in braids. She halted before their cell and looked hard at both of them for a long moment. Then she gestured to Nell. "You. Come with me."

The electrified bars shut off, and a door swung open at one end of the cell. Nell stepped out, surprised to see that the warlocks carried no weapons. "Aren't you worried I'll try to escape? Or fight you?"

"With no ghost?" said the dark woman with an ironic laugh. "If you do pull something, you will face Praxic Fire."

Nell decided at once to be very, very good.

"I am Aunor Mahal," the dark woman went on. "You are to be interrogated about your role in this little kerfuffle."

"Is my ghost safe?" Nell exclaimed.

Aunor nodded. "Your ghost is unharmed. He has cooperated with us closely." She gave Nell a sharp look. "This isn't your first brush with the Vanguard's justice system."

Nell didn't answer. It might be held against her. Heaven knew she had enough black marks already.

They led her up several flights of stairs to a little concrete room with walls made of support pillars. They must be inside the City wall somewhere. Inside the room was a table and a single chair under a bright light. A ghost lay on the table, a Praxic restraint band wound around it.

"Hadrian!" Nell exclaimed, diving for him and scooping him up. "Are you all right? Did they hurt you?"

His eye studied her anxiously around the edges of the band. "I'm safe, Nell. Only restrained. You've been crying! What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"Not hurt, only upset."

Aunor cleared her throat. "Put him down, guardian. Sit. We have questions."

Nell sat down and set Hadrian on the table in front of her, but kept one hand on him, stroking his shell.

They asked the questions Nell thought they would ask. She answered them through that distant calm that had settled over her. No, she didn't know her team had weapons of sorrow. No, she didn't own one. Yes, she'd encountered whispers before. No, she hadn't heard them since the Reef. Yes, she played Gambit. Yes, she was the top ranked invader. Yes, she enjoyed the power rush. But she enjoyed the payout more.

On and on it went, question after question. Nell gazed at Hadrian as she talked, taking in every dent and scratch in his shell, the bits of Fallen house marks that showed on his core. The harsh overhead light revealed them all. She stroked his shell and traced his core around his eye, watching his eyelid iris closed, then open again, like a camera shutter.

They asked about Grant, and that was harder. She didn't hate him - that is, she didn't hate him anymore. Yes, she'd been afraid of him, but she sort of liked him, too. Had she intended to kill him today? Well, only if he attacked her, first.

What relationship did they have? Nell fumbled around. "He said he loves me. But I don't have to love him back. I don't want to, either. Not now, but maybe ... maybe later on? I don't know. Stop smiling at me, Hadrian, you're making this worse."

Aunor Mahal wore a faintly disgusted expression, as if this sort of relationship drama was not what she'd expected or wanted to hear about. "Your ghost's account matches yours, more or less. Wait here, please." She and the other warlocks left the room.

As soon as they were alone, Hadrian squealed, "He told you he loves you? In those words? He does?"

"I'm those exact words," Nell replied. She snatched up Hadrian and held him against her cheek. "What do I do? He told me I don't have to return his affection. He more or less told me to move on with my life."

Hadrian sighed in bliss. "Aw. It's better than a melodrama. My guardian. In love."

"I'm not in love!" Nell exclaimed. "He's in love with me!"

"Right, right," Hadrian replied. "I have no idea what to do, Nell. First, we have to get out of here. They caught Liran and Nessa, but Cidrex got away. They're still hunting him in the EDZ."

"Who fired the rocket?"

"We don't know. It came from a ship nearby, but nobody knows whose ship it was. I was busy being captured, so I didn't have time to scan it."

Nell thought about this, stroking her ghost. "Do they know why somebody shot us?"

"Liran said Cidrex just wigged out and started shooting. They think it was his gun making him do it. He tried to shoot Liran and Nessa, too, then the Praxic Order jumped them, and it was all confusion after that."

"Cidrex," Nell whispered. "Oh no, the bone got him. And that gun was so pretty, too."

"Pretty and dangerous," Hadrian replied. They looked at each other, thinking of the weapon Nell had ordered, but not daring to mention it aloud.

The door opened and the warlocks returned. Aunor Mahal carried a tablet in one hand, which she tapped as she walked. "Your accounts check out. We're letting you go with a warning. Stay away from weapons of sorrow."

"What about Gambit?" Nell asked.

Aunor's nose wrinkled. "I cannot forbid you, in any official capacity, to stop playing that game." She reached out and touched a keycard to Hadrian's bond. It snapped open, and she removed it. The ghost shot into the air and instantly disappeared.

"Free!" he exclaimed in Nell's head.

Nell stood up. "I was shot with a weapon of sorrow. Am I going to die?"

"While you were wounded," Aunor replied, "the weapon fired conventional projectiles, not Devourer Bullets. You may experience residual pain for some time, but there is no corruption."

Nell exhaled in relief.

Aunor opened the door and stood aside. "Follow the hall to your left and take the stairs to the top."

"Thank you," Nell said, and bolted.

The stairs zigzagged their way up through the wall for at least six stories. When Nell opened the door at the top at last, she emerged in the wall near the Tower walk. The fresh, spring wind in her face was the most beautiful aroma she'd ever smelled. She stood on the wall and filled her lungs over and over. The sun was setting behind the Traveler, and the sky was washed in orange and pink.

Hadrian appeared beside her. Nell caught him and hugged him for a long while, then inspected him all over for damage. Hadrian submitted to this handling, closing his eye in enjoyment.

Once she was satisfied that he was unharmed, Nell released him. Then she sat on the wall's parapet and watched the door.

"Why don't we go home?" Hadrian asked.

"I'm waiting for Grant," Nell said. "If they don't let him go, I'm going Nightstalker on their asses."

Hadrian gazed at the little door, too. It was marked Maintenance in faded letters.

"It'll be a while before they're done questioning him," Hadrian pointed out. "Why not grab dinner while you wait? I hear your stomach growling."

Nell thought this was a very good idea. It was the dinner rush at the Tower's food court. Nell stood in line for what seemed like hours, then bought a vast plate of nachos with beef.

She carried it back toward the tiny door, eating as she went. As she came into sight of the spot, she saw Grant standing outside the door. He was stroking his ghost and talking to her softly, as Nell had done with Hadrian. Nell had never seen him interact with his ghost before. Sentry wore a blue and gold shell that cost Golden Age silver, not glimmer. Expensive. Even Nell didn't have a lot of silver banked. Grant's movements were slow and gentle, one hand cupped under the ghost, the other stroking the pretty shell. He leaned his metal forehead against the ghost and they gazed into each other's eyes.

"Aww," she thought to Hadrian. "He loves her as much as I love you."

"That's a good sign," Hadrian replied. "All good guardians love their ghosts."

Nell stood there, munching chips and waiting for Grant to notice her. Eventually, he looked up, saw her, and waved his ghost into position over his shoulder. He strode forward, moving cautiously. "Hello, Nell."

"Hey," she said, holding out her plate. "Want some? I bought a double serving."

Grant looked at the food, then his orange eyes studied her face. He smiled. "Gladly."


	13. Chapter 13: Chemistry

The next visitor to Aunor's interrogation room was Jayesh.

He sat at the little table under the light, both hands resting on its surface. His ghost in its red and yellow shell floated at his shoulder, unrestrained as long as Jayesh cooperated. They gazed coolly at Aunor.

"The last I saw of you," Aunor said without preamble, "you were asking for Sunsinger training. Now you're working with two known weapon crafting suspects at the Volundr forge. Explain yourself."

Jayesh raised one hand. "First, I'd like to thank you for your quick response to my call."

Aunor inclined her head a fraction. "You were right to call us. That group of idiots would have died, with Malphur shooting rockets at them. However. You blew your own cover doing so. I want an explanation."

"Right." Jayesh's expression was frustratingly blank. No nervous tells. Aunor watched him, reading his every movement, watching for signs that he'd gone rogue.

"I met those two smiths in healing rift therapy," Jayesh said. "I overheard them saying odd things. I had no proof of foul play, though, and figured that joining them would give me a chance to investigate."

"And did it?"

Jayesh shrugged. "They've crafted a load of Black Armory weapons. I run their online store, so I see the orders coming in. There's no trace of Hive bone or weapons of sorrow."

"How long have you worked with them?"

"About two weeks, now."

Aunor gazed at him in silence. Cal hadn't known that Jayesh had picked up a side job. According to Cal's reports, Jayesh's psychic damage was healing and his grasp of Sunsinger Light was improving. He would be immensely foolish to go rogue at this point, but many Guardians had walked that path before him.

At the same time, if he really was attempting to go undercover, he was immensely useful.

"Do the smiths trust you?" she asked.

That noncommittal shrug again. "We've agreed not to trust each other, but also not to stab each other in the back."

"And you're spying," Aunor said. "With intent to stab them in the back."

Jayesh gestured dismissively. "Like I've said, I haven't seen anything incriminating. I tried not to blow their cover today, but I had to do something about Nell and Grant. Seeing as I'm sitting here, now, looks like I failed."

Aunor gazed at him, then looked at her tablet with Jayesh's records. He was a middle of the road Guardian with an average engagement record. But he had a higher than normal injury rate - strange, bad injuries. He also had a note from Ikora mentioning that he pushed his Light too far. While he sometimes reaped great rewards, he hurt himself just as often.

Maybe he would be more useful as a Hidden operative than as a soldier. His profile was that of a thinker, philosopher and scientist. He'd serve the Gensym Scribes better than the Praxic Order, but Aunor could still use him.

"You're in a precarious position, guardian," she told him. "I've detained Guardians on far less suspicion than I have for you. But you've also put yourself into a position to pass valuable information to the Praxic Order. If I release you tonight, you will agree to become our field agent."

"And if I don't agree?" Jayesh said.

"Then you return to your cell until you do," Aunor replied.

They gazed at each other, each daring the other to make a move.

"Seems I have no choice," Jayesh said. "I'll serve the Praxic Order as a spy."

"Good," Aunor said. "I know you have a family. I'd hate to keep you from them longer than necessary."

Jayesh arched a sarcastic eyebrow. "This had better not be blackmail."

"It's not," Aunor replied. "Only a friendly reminder."

She had her underlings usher Jayesh out. Then she took a few minutes to make a few private notes about his interrogation. Professional. Level-headed. Possibly a liar, better watch for half-truths. Loyal to his fireteam to the point of having them arrested for their own safety. Certainly no outward signs of psychic damage. Recommend him for another exam soon.

When her underlings returned, Aunor said, "Transfer Liran and Nessa to our rehab facility. They hadn't had their weapons long. I have full confidence we can still save them."

"What about the one still at large?" one asked.

Aunor clenched her teeth. "We keep hunting him. Otherwise, Shin Malphur will make him disappear."

* * *

The next day, Jayesh and Nell went on patrol together.

It was an easy patrol, around the farms outside the City walls, looking for any signs of Fallen. At this time of year, such signs were few and far between. But there were old encampments to check on, and the patrol promised to last most of the day.

Nell didn't say much, beyond the superficial communication about the patrol and directions. Jayesh watched her as they rode their sparrows around a wheat field. Nell was withdrawn, her focus turned inward. She wore a different set of armor than usual, as her favorite set now had bullet holes in it.

They reached an old Fallen camp in the shadow of a maple grove. Their ghosts showed them that it was deserted, but they still dismounted and explored it anyway. Nothing much remained but twisted pieces of metal even the Fallen couldn't salvage.

"Are you all right?" Jayesh asked Nell.

She glanced at him, then folded her arms and looked away. "I got arrested. What do you think?"

"I was arrested, too."

Nell looked at him, grinning this time. "What'd you do?"

He returned her grin. "Never mind what I did. They let me go, anyway. I heard your team shot you up."

"They did, the bastards." Nell's smile turned into a bitter frown. "It was those bone weapons. Made them crazy."

Jayesh hesitated, then asked, "Did you work things out with Grant?"

Nell drummed her fingers on her arm, then tucked her hair behind one ear, her movements nervous and uncomfortable. "Sort of. I guess. He's nice."

"He's nice?"

"For a cyborg, yeah." Nell spun on her heel and walked off.

Jayesh watched her go. What in the world had happened? At least she wasn't going on about murdering him anymore.

They walked around the encampment, then rode their sparrows to the next spot in silence. The fields they passed through were green with fresh crops - corn, carrots, potatoes, and alfalfa. The air smelled of wet earth and growing things.

The next Fallen encampment was abandoned, too. As they inspected it, Nell said, "Jay, when did you know that you loved Kari?"

This was the last thing he'd ever expected her to ask about. Jayesh sat on a rock in the shade. Nell crouched nearby, playing with a knife, her eyes fixed on his face, waiting avidly for the answer.

"Well, I ..." He thought about their relationship, the slow, gradual development of friendship into something more. "We were just friends for a long time. I never wanted to date her or anything, because I valued that friendship so highly."

Nell nodded. "But you had to fall in love at some point."

Jayesh held out a hand and summoned Phoenix. "What do you think?"

"It was the plague winter," the ghost said. "When you two were working yourselves to death to save the City. And you were morons about your feelings."

"Yes, but that wasn't the _beginning_. That was more like ... the middle."

Nell was grinning again, her eyes sparkling. "Morons about your feelings?"

Phoenix turned to her. "They tried to sound each other out about being in love and managed to completely insult each other instead. Then they had to fight Fallen, and Kari called Jayesh a wuss for screaming when she ripped a spear out of him."

Nell laughed and clapped a hand to her mouth.

Jayesh gave Phoenix a disgusted look. "You had to bring that up."

"She wanted to know!" the ghost retorted. He returned his gaze to Nell. "They'd been sweet on each other pretty much since they met. But neither of them would admit it. They didn't want to chase the other one off."

Nell nodded, still grinning, her cheeks gone pink. "I didn't know any of this. You two are adorable."

Jayesh cleared his throat and looked at the sun's position. "We should get going."

As they mounted their sparrows, Jayesh said, "Any particular reason you're digging up my most embarrassing mistakes?"

"Well ..." Nell hesitated until they were in motion, cruising side by side along a dirt road between two fields. "It's Grant. He told me that he's basically in love with me. And I don't know how to feel about it."

"Oh," Jayesh replied. "That's ... a lot to deal with."

Nell nodded. "Part of me wants to run away and hide. But the other part of me wants to ... I don't know ... see what will happen. I mean ... he's an Exo. Can they actually feel love?"

"Exos have human minds," Jayesh replied. "You bet they can."

"Right," Nell said. "I keep trying to remember that. So ... what do you think I should do?"

Jayesh thought about it. "If you want, I can invite him onto our fireteam. We need a Titan. That way, we can work as a group, and you can get to know him in a non-romantic setting. Who knows? He might get tired of you and the flame might die down."

"That would be great," Nell said in relief. "Right now, I'm just trying to get past how scary-looking he is."

Jayesh grinned. "He does look pretty fierce. Black and orange. But it's just paint. He can always have his colors redone."

"He can?" Nell said, giving him an astonished look.

Jayesh nodded. "Oh yeah, you should see the Exo mod shops in the City. They can do all kinds of crazy things. Jaws with teeth. Dentigrade legs."

"Lips?" Nell said.

When Jayesh gave her a questioning look, she flushed beet red.

"You know," she stammered, "for, like, kissing. Since Exos don't really have ... you know what, never mind." She worked the afterburner on her bike and shot ahead up the road, leaving Jayesh laughing in her wake.

"She's got it bad," Phoenix remarked in Jayesh's head.

"I think you're right," Jayesh agreed. "She has to figure it out for herself, though. Send a message to Grant's ghost, will you? Invite him to our fireteam."

"Are we still Fireteam Vengeance?" Phoenix asked.

"No," Jayesh replied. "That was only for our stint in the Reef. What do you think we should be called?"

"Fireteam Loveboat," Phoenix said.

"No!"

"Fireteam Dates R Us?"

"No, stop it!"

"Fireteam Cupid."

"You know what, sorry I asked." Jayesh was laughing so hard, he could barely steer his sparrow. "Call us Fireteam Solarflare, since half of us use Solar Light."

"Reasonable," Phoenix agreed. He sent the invitation to Grant's ghost. A reply came back within a minute. "Wow, that was fast. Grant wants to join. Surprise, surprise. But he's running Arc Light right now and wants to know if that's a problem."

"No problem," Jayesh said. "Solarflare is just a name."

"Right," Phoenix said. "I've registered him as a member. I guess we need to pick up strikes, then."

"I'll take a look at the upcoming missions when we're done here," Jayesh thought. "It'll be good to go somewhere that isn't the EDZ or the Drifter's ship."

Phoenix gave a mock sigh. "Dating among the planets. Venus is romantic this time of year."

Jayesh laughed.

* * *

The sun was setting as Jayesh and Nell returned to the Tower, tired and dusty. Nell took off to grab dinner. Jayesh made his way toward Ikora's office to give his report.

He wasn't very alert as he made his way through crowds of Guardians and humans - after all, this was the Tower, where it was safe. So he never saw Donovan coming.

The burly Titan grabbed Jayesh's arm from behind and whisked him down a narrow alley between buildings. They arrived in a little back corner where the Drifter used to plot Gambit games. It still smelled like him back there.

Donovan shoved Jayesh against the wall and pressed a knife to his throat. "Don't move, warlock."

Jayesh stood perfectly still, eyes wide, adrenaline pumping through him. The chill of the blade against his skin brought back nightmare memories of cultists cutting his throat and drinking his blood as he died. For a wild, illogical second, he thought Donovan meant to do the same thing. He groped for his Light and found only flickers.

The Titan glowered at him, his eyebrows drawn together over his beak of a nose. "What did you tell the Praxic Order?"

Jayesh drew a slow breath beneath the blade. "Have they come after you?"

"I'll ask the questions," Donovan snarled. "What did you tell them?"

For a second, Jayesh's mind was a screaming blank. Then Phoenix said in his head, "You tried to clear them, remember?"

Then it all came back. Jayesh said, "They already know about you and Tanner using the forge. But they don't have any proof of foul play. They pressed me. But I haven't witnessed any criminal activities, either, and I run the store."

Donovan relaxed a little, withdrawing the knife a few inches. "That's all you said?"

"I tried to get you off," Jayesh said, holding still, anyway. "The Praxic Order is after weapons of sorrow. They weren't concerned about Black Armory."

Donovan gave him a strange look. His hand tightened around his knife hilt. And in that second, Jayesh was dead certain that Donovan was, indeed, crafting the illegal bone weapons.

Then Donovan hid the look with a laugh. "Well then. You didn't sell us out like I thought." He sheathed the knife and stepped back, giving Jayesh space. "I know they're watching us. It's why we try to keep things on the up and up. Glad I didn't have to kill you tonight." He gave Jayesh another of those dark looks. "They probably made you swear to pass information to them, didn't they?"

Jayesh didn't answer.

"Uh-huh," said Donovan. "Well. Don't expect to see anything interesting. We're weapon smiths. That's all." He gave Jayesh a friendly shoulder punch and walked away down the alley.

Jayesh stood there a long moment, drawing deep breaths and trying to calm down.

"Phoenix," he thought, "they really are doing it, aren't they?"

"I'm beginning to wonder," Phoenix replied. "That was an awfully strong reaction for an innocent man."

Jayesh raised a hand and blasted the concrete wall with fire. His Light worked now, of course, when he wasn't paralyzed with fear. "I could have fried him."

"And he'd have blown your head off," Phoenix replied. "He's a Sunbreaker."

Jayesh stood there, watching flames dance in his palm. "What happens when I do find evidence of foul play?"

Phoenix was silent a moment. "Let's hope you're a fully-trained Sunsinger by then."

* * *

Nell, meanwhile, had ordered a vast bowl of egg drop soup and was eating it while sitting on a retaining wall above the Tower walk. Every table and chair was full, the plaza below full of people and voices.

She was eating mindlessly, gazing at the horizon beyond the Traveler, when a voice said, "Mind if I join you?"

Grant stood nearby, holding a loaded plate of his own, his orange eyes and black metal face a stark contrast to his blue and orange Titan armor.

Nell cringed - how had he found her in this crowd? - then nodded. He sat on the wall beside her and balanced his plate on one knee.

"Just came off patrol," Grant told her.

"Me too," she replied.

He took a bite. She watched him, fascinated to see a cyborg eating food like a human being. His jaws moved the same way, too. She had watched him closely the previous night, too.

Grant noticed her looking and said, "What?"

"Where does the food go?" Nell asked. "Exos have stomachs?"

He shrugged one pauldron. "It's not quite like a human digestive tract. It's more of a chemical reactor that breaks down organic matter for energy."

Nell eyed his midsection. "Is that why Exos are so huge?"

He grinned. "Exo women are quite petite sometimes. I just happen to be on the large side. And I'm still in armor."

Nell tried to focus on her dinner, but her attention kept wandering to her companion. He was simply so _strange_. She watched him drink from a cup, then blurted, "Do you have lips?"

He tapped a finger against the two curved plates that formed his mouth. "Not as such. I have to be creative so as not to spill."

"So you couldn't kiss anyone," Nell said.

Grant didn't turn his head, but his eyes flicked sideways to scrutinize her face. Then slowly he changed positions, turning to face her on the wall. "Now, that's an interesting question."

"What is?" Nell asked, scooting backwards an inch.

"I've never kissed anyone before," he said quietly. "And nobody has ever offered to kiss me. So I'm uncertain how it would ... work."

Nell looked him up and down, her usual bravado rising to the surface. "I could kiss you. You know. Just to see what it's like."

He blinked. "You're ... sure you want to? We scarcely know one another."

Nell shrugged. "I've been dying of curiosity. You wouldn't mind, would you?"

"Not at all," he said, smiling.

Before common sense or fear could stop her, Nell stood up, leaned into Grant's face, and kissed him on the mouth.

It wasn't metal there, as she had assumed - it was some sort of soft plastic, and it was warm. She found herself nose to nose with the Exo she'd been so afraid of for so long. She looked into his eyes from an inch away and saw humanity behind the circuits and metal.

"Hmm," she said, running a finger along the metal ridge of his cheekbone. "Inconclusive. I'd better do it again." She kissed him a second time.

She sat down again. Grant stared at her, one hand reaching feebly after her, then settling on his knee.

"What?" she grinned.

Grant shook his head, as if trying to clear it. "I was ... that ... you ..." He touched his mouth, then looked at her. "Why did you ... twice?"

Nell laughed, relishing his discomfiture. "Better watch out who you crush on, mister. You might get more than you can handle."

"Oh, believe me," Grant murmured, his voice dropping an octave. "I am capable of handling quite a lot."

"Keep telling yourself that," Nell laughed again, tossing back her hair and flirting for all she was worth.

She was wondering what he'd do if she kissed him again, when her ghost said in her head, "Um, Nell ... sorry to intrude ..."

"What, Hadrian?"

"You're being hailed from the EDZ. By Cidrex."

All the fun drained out of Nell in a split second. She turned away from Grant and stared at nothing. "Oh no. No, why is he calling now?"

Grant sensed something was wrong. "Who is calling?"

"Cidrex," she said in an undertone. "My stupid teammate who shot us. He escaped the Praxic Order and is running around the EDZ. And he's calling me."

Grant stiffened, his orange eyes brightening to yellow. One hand dropped to his sidearm. "What does he want?"

"I don't know." Nell held out a hand and summoned Hadrian. "Answer him."

Hadrian displayed a holographic interface, faint windows and buttons hanging in the air. Nell touched one and opened an audio connection. "Hello?"

"Nell!" came Cidrex's voice. "Thank the Traveler. I can't reach anybody else. I'm stranded out here! The blasted Order took my ship!"

"Everybody else is in rehab," Nell said dryly. "I imagine they still don't even have access to their ghosts."

"You gotta help me," Cidrex begged. "I haven't eaten anything in two days. And this place is so freaky at night. Please come pick me up!"

"And what?" Nell said. "Let you shoot me again? Fat chance."

"No, I won't!" he insisted. "The bones promised to help me. They said to call you."

"I didn't come from Stupidsville on last night's train," Nell snapped. "You tried to kill me. And you'll do it again if the bones tell you to. You can starve out there for all I care."

"Nell, please listen. I've got to get out of here. The Shard is driving me insane. That noise it makes. The bones know all kinds of places to hide out." His voice dropped. "And play Gambit. The bones know strategy like you wouldn't dream of. I could get rich."

Nell looked at Grant, a chill running up her back and down her arms. Grant's eyes were wide with alarm.

"Cidrex isn't like this," she whispered.

"Don't promise him anything," Grant whispered back.

"Cid," Nell said slowly, "I can't."

"Some friend you are," he snarled, his voice suddenly thick with rage. "I should have filled you full of lead, and your ghost, too. I'm going to carve your name into my next Devourer Bullet."

He broke the connection.

Nell mechanically closed the window on Hadrian's interface. Then she sat there, staring at her ghost. He closed the hologram and stared back.

"What do we do?" she whispered.

"Do?" Grant said. "We report him to the Praxic Order. Let them deal with him."

"I am not going to them," Nell snapped. "After they locked us up? And took our ghosts? Treated us like criminals? Cidrex may be nuts, but I'm not selling him out. I'm no snitch."

"Well then." Grant folded his arms. "He just promised to destroy you and consume your Light. You have no hope of reasoning with him, or even surviving such an encounter."

Nell rose to her feet and gathered their empty dishes. "First, I'm returning these. Second, I'm going to talk to the Drifter. He's dealt with real Shadows of Yor. He'll know what to do."


	14. Chapter 14: Cidrex

Several people had brought dinner to the Drifter. He was surrounded by dirty dishes, and was cheerfully eating his way through his third helping of gyros. In between bites, he talked Gambit with the crowd around him.

Nell groaned to Hadrian. "He's busy. We'll never get a word in edgewise."

"Allow me," Grant said. He shouldered through the crowd, clearing a path like a bulldozer through weeds. He spoke to the Drifter in an undertone.

The Drifter nodded. "A little private business," he said to the crowd. "Clear out for a minute, you all. I'll call when these two are done."

The Gambit groupies obediently departed, talking cheerfully, and stood in the hallway.

"Now." The Drifter leaned his elbow on the table, looking from Grant, to Nell, and back. "What's this about shadows?"

Nell recounted her team's acquisition of weapons of sorrow, of their attack and subsequent arrest. "Cidrex escaped, but he's gone bonkers. He wanted help, but when I said no, he threatened to carve my name on a Devourer Bullet."

The Drifter sat back in his chair. "Well now." He scratched his beard in thought. "Isn't Cidrex your friend?"

"Yeah," Nell said. "Until this happened."

The Drifter nodded. "Sometimes friends get into trouble. Think about it. Guy's stranded. That Shard is no picnic. Probably hungry. Lonely. No voices around except his ghost and his gun. He calls his last friend in the world and she shuts him down. What would you do if you were him?"

Nell considered, many uncomfortable scenarios occurring to her. "I'd get a ship, eventually. And I'd come to the Tower and shoot that friend who didn't help me."

The Drifter nodded. "Loyalty matters in this game. You've all played Gambit long enough. You should know." He glanced at Grant, then Nell. Their proximity hadn't escaped him.

"Now," the Drifter went on, pressing his hands together. "What I'd do? Take the guy some supplies. He'll calm down once he's fed. The voices get real loud when you're hungry, trust me. Talk to him. See if he'll make a deal. Get him cover, ship him off Earth."

"But," Nell said, "won't he just turn totally evil?"

The Drifter shrugged. "That's his battle to fight. But he deserves a chance, long as he knows what he's in for. How will he know unless somebody tells him?"

Nell shifted her weight from foot to foot. The Drifter was right, and she didn't like it. She looked up at Grant, who had listened to this in silence. "What do you think?"

The Exo inclined his head. "It's decent advice. However, do not go alone."

"I never said go alone," the Drifter said. "Take friends you can trust. And let the poor guy know you're coming. Give him a little hope."

"Or a chance to ambush us," Nell muttered.

The Drifter grinned. "That's part of the risk. No risk, no reward." He scrutinized Grant, then Nell. "Don't die out there. It'd be a shame to lose my top two invaders."

* * *

Jayesh was still up later that night, lying in bed and reading his tablet, Kari asleep beside him. He hadn't been able to shake the shock of being suddenly man-handled and threatened, and was trying to calm down before trying to sleep. Dreams revisiting the night his throat had been cut were the last thing he wanted.

Phoenix said in his head, "Message from Nell."

"Play it," Jayesh thought.

Phoenix played the voice message. It was an anxious-sounding Nell, pouring out the story of her teammate Cidrex asking her for help. "I don't want to go alone. Grant is going with me, but I'd feel better if you went, too. You're a healer, right? Can you still do that? Just in case something goes wrong."

Jayesh listened in growing apprehension. This was exactly the kind of situation Kari had begged him not to get involved in. Weapons of sorrow ... unstable guardians ... Devourer Bullets flying around. His free hand found Phoenix lying on the pillow on his other side. He gently scooped up the little robot and held him to his heart.

"I know what you're thinking," Phoenix murmured in his head. "I'm scared, too."

"My Light isn't right," Jayesh thought, rubbing the ghost's shell. "It still doesn't respond when I need it to, unless I sing. And Shin Malphur is out there. What if he pops up and starts killing us all?"

"Nell doesn't know about him," Phoenix replied. "She's going into this mess blind. He's already gunning for you, sort of."

"I know." Jayesh shivered and gazed at Kari, her hair a dark swirl against the pillow. "I can't let Kari down like this. But I can't call the Praxic Order this time, can I?"

"Not if you're trying to lure out a guy without getting shot," Phoenix replied. "Light burn it all. This is bad."

"I know."

Jayesh bowed his head and reached for his Light. It stirred inside him, evading his touch, ignoring his call. It wanted a song. But he hadn't found his song, yet. Guitar music affected it, singing affected it, but nothing was _right_. He might as well be walking into this confrontation naked.

"Traveler," he thought, reaching out. "Please hear me. Please."

For a second, his Light complied. And for an even smaller fraction of a second, he sensed the greater Light of the Traveler, present, alert, listening. It was close, so close he could nearly taste the Light like cool water on his tongue. But the impression faded. His Light swirled away.

Jayesh groaned softly and rested his head against his knees, still clutching his ghost.

"You almost did it," Phoenix whispered.

"And failed," Jayesh thought. The nearness of that touch, the fellowship he missed so badly, was torment. He felt even more alone now than before he'd reached out, still lost, alone, wandering. "Maybe I'll never get it back."

"But you're healing!" Phoenix protested. "We both are. You're nearly there. Don't give up!"

Jayesh gently set Phoenix back on the pillow, then lay down, his ghost on one side, his wife on the other. The ghost's friendly blue eye blinked at him in the darkness. "Don't give up," he whispered.

Jayesh gazed at him in despair and didn't answer. A thought had occurred to him - a dark, desperate thought.

In the morning, he'd pay a visit to the Praxic Order and gamble with his life.

* * *

In his room, Grant stood in front of his bathroom mirror, studying his reflection. The Exo been there nearly twenty minutes, unmoving, just staring at his own black and orange face. His ghost, Sentry, was growing worried.

She flew up beside him and looked at him in the mirror, too. "Grant?"

He grunted.

"What's wrong?"

His orange eyes blinked at her. "She kissed me."

"Yes, I know," Sentry said, twirling her shell. "It took me by surprise, too."

Grant touched his mouth with one finger. Then he straightened abruptly with a growl. "But she wasn't kissing _me_. She was kissing an Exo." He stalked into his room and dropped onto his bed, where he lay on his back, glaring at the ceiling. "I'm a novelty to her. Just a thing to play with. Not really a person."

Sentry slowly flew after him, his words sobering her. "You think so? She might have decided to like you."

"Maybe." Grant's glare didn't abate. He was hurting in a way that no ghost could heal. "I've gone over every word and look she gave me. And ... she hasn't shown a speck of interest in who I am. Only in how I look. And I'm a _monster_, Sentry. She kissed me to see what it was like to kiss a _monster._"

Sentry floated beside the bed in dismayed silence. She barely thought of Grant as an Exo, herself, because she was so enamored with his quiet ways, his delight in old books, his solitude, and his strength in battle and his powerful Light. The thought of Nell casually breaking his heart by treating him like a _thing_ set Sentry's core aflame with rage.

"I'll set her straight," she said. "I'll rip her a new one. Teach her how to treat you."

"No," Grant said, looking at her sharply. "It won't help. Leave her be." He rolled into his side and wrapped his arms around his pillow. "Maybe I can teach her to see past my exterior. Show her who I am inside this metal shell."

"I know who you are," Sentry said softly, landing on the pillow near his face. "You're a good man."

His metal fingers stroked her shell. "Thanks, my good girl. But first, this messy situation with Cidrex. And no more kissing."

"Not if it hurts you," Sentry whispered. "It's not worth it."

Grant's eyes closed. As he began to doze, Sentry couldn't help but ask the question that had been pestering her. "What did it feel like?"

Grant didn't answer for a long moment. Then he murmured, "It felt nice."

And that was all Sentry could get out of him.

* * *

Nell had gone to her room, but not to bed. No sooner had the door closed behind her than Hadrian said, "Nell, um, I don't know how to say this ..."

"What?" Nell exclaimed. "Cidrex is calling again?"

"No ..." Hadrian phased into sight beside her and managed to look pained. "You have a message from the hand cannon smith. Your, uh, gun with the ornaments is ready for pickup tonight."

Nell stood in the middle of her tiny apartment as doom crashed over her. A weapon of sorrow. Like the one eating Cidrex. She had admired his gun, felt how good it handled, sensed the life in it. She'd asked that it go to a good home.

And Cidrex was stranded in the EDZ with it, raving about the things the bones whispered to him, of power and riches.

Her gun would do the same.

"I don't want it," she said wildly. "It was to kill Grant, but I don't want him killed, now."

"No refunds, remember?" Hadrian said. "I don't want you to have it, either. Should I see if they'll cancel the order?"

"Wait." Nell sank into a chair, digging both hands into her black hair. "Let me think. Let me ... okay, tell me if this tracks."

Hadrian nodded.

Nell looked at him desperately. "What if ... Cidrex has a bone gun, right? So, what if I take a bone gun, too? And if he pulls his, I can pull mine? Not to kill him. Just to threaten."

"But ..." Hadrian bobbed uneasily in midair. "What if the gun makes you kill him? Or me, even?"

"Dredgen Yor didn't even kill his own ghost," Nell said. "He chased him off. No matter what the bones do, I'd never hurt you."

Hadrian gazed at her doubtfully.

She leaned forward. "Look. I'll use the gun tomorrow, to scare Cid. Then I'll turn it in to the Praxic Order. And if I don't, then you have them haul me to rehab. Don't let me slip down that road, understand? I don't want to go crazy. And if I do, I won't be in any state to help myself."

"Nell," Hadrian whispered. He shivered his segments, opening and closing his shell a little. "They'll imprison me again." Then he seemed to collect his resolve. His voice strengthened. "But you're worth it. If I have to sit in a restraint for years, it'll be worth it, as long as you come back to me."

Nell lifted him out of the air and pressed her cheek against his shell. "My brave little ghost," she whispered. "I'll never, never, never abandon you." She set him back in the air. "Now, let's go pick up a crazy gun."

* * *

Cidrex crouched in a patch of bushes at dawn, watching the field where Nell would arrive.

She had called him back after he'd hung up on her the night before - offering him supplies and a lift. Her tone had been apologetic, and a little frightened. It had upset him, a little, too. Why was Nell afraid of him? He'd been on her Gambit team since the game started. Didn't she know she could trust him? He'd never actually use a Devourer Bullet on her. That had been bluster. In reality, the thought made him sick.

Even now, sitting in the brush, the hand cannon in its holster whispered to him. "Feed. Grow strong. Take."

"Shut up," he whispered. "Sox, do something."

"I'm trying," his ghost replied irritably. "It keeps switching frequencies. As soon as I get one filtered, it jumps to another."

The whispers had been exciting at first. The young hunter had talked to them, listened to their promises of truth and power. He'd even found a spare piece of Hive bone in the bottom of his knapsack and begun carving it into a Devourer Bullet, following directions given by the whispers.

But after two days and nights without food or even much sleep, the whispers had begun to grate on his nerves. Cidrex wanted hot food, a shower, and a soft bed. Hell, he'd take a slightly reclined seat in a ship and cold rations. Anything was better than a pile of leaves.

And he couldn't get away from the Shard of the Traveler. The more sensitive he became to the whispers, the more he detected a noise - a terrible ringing sound, like a distant alarm that never shut off. No matter where he went - the forest, the canyons, the old, ruined towns - the resonance of the Shard was driving him nuts.

Something touched his head. He ran a hand over his green hair and encountered an insect. He brushed it off. It looked like a grasshopper, but it had a curled scorpion tail. It hopped away into the leaves, Cidrex shuddering in its wake. The Shard had mutated the bugs, the animals, everything. It was like an alien planet out here and he wanted to get away from it. He'd head to Mars. There were a few hiding places he'd found, and he'd be comfortable enough living there until he made his fortune in Gambit.

And sleep. Light, he'd give anything to sleep right now.

"The physical is an illusion," the bones whispered. "Real being begins upon death."

Cidrex ignored them. He pulled out the Devourer Bullet and went back to shaping it with his knife, just to give his hands something to do. The bone was a poor specimen and quite splintery. The whispers had given him exact dimensions. They even specified that the bone must come from the ribs of a Hive Knight that had laid closest to its worm. He wasn't sure what part this bone fragment was from, but it was all he had.

One Devourer Bullet. He could kill a Guardian permanently with it, if he desired it enough. "But it's only for defense," he muttered aloud. "Only if they're going to kill me." He had conventional bullets for the hand cannon, but the Devourer Bullet was almost too big to fit in the revolver's chamber. He whittled it down some more. Then he pulled apart a regular bullet and fitted the gunpowder cartridge onto the carefully-shaped bone.

"If it's only for defense," said his ghost, "why are you messing with it? Nell isn't going to attack you."

"She'll bring backup," Cidrex replied. "Like when she went to meet Grant. I screwed up, then. The bones said to fire. So I did. I shouldn't have listened."

"What if they tell you to shoot her again?" Sox murmured, spinning his shell nervously.

"I won't listen," Cidrex said, shaving off tiny bone flakes. "I'm the one in control. Not them."

He said it, but inside he quivered with doubt. The cannon felt so good in his hand, so reassuring and right. When it wanted to fire, he obeyed, and he felt instantly better, as if killing with the cannon was good and necessary.

His ghost turned and looked at the sky. "Ships coming. Three, I think."

Cidrex loaded his gun and positioned the cylinder. "We'll let them come to us."

And also they'd hear him coming a mile away if he moved. Here on the south side of the Shard, there hadn't been much rain in some time. The dead trees were dry skeletons. The grass was crunchy and yellow, the bushes lined with dead leaves. The Shard seemed to affect the weather, creating and erasing clouds on a whim. Cidrex kept his back to it, trying not to hear its awful noise.

In the distance, three jumpships swooped down and landed in the field. Their guardians transmatted out and looked around. Then they headed toward him, tracking him by his ghost.

"Only three," Cidrex muttered. "Sox, who?"

"Nell, Grant-4, and Nell's friend Jayesh."

Cidrex fingered his hand cannon. "Grant's a killer. What do we know about Jayesh?"

"Uh, warlock?" Sox said. "He's on medical leave. That's all I can see of his file from way out here. Probably dangerous. His team won a Gambit match because he sang some weird song, remember?"

A song. Like the way the Hive worked their magic. Cidrex adjusted his grip on his gun. He had a sniper rifle, too, but he preferred not to use it at close range because of the kick. The hand cannon had one bullet, but hopefully he wouldn't need it.

As the guardians approached, he stood up, pushing back branches and sprays of leaves. Nell was in the lead, her helmet off, her gleaming black hair contrasting with her fair skin. She was cute and dangerous, like a baby crocodile Cidrex had seen once.

"Cid!" Nell exclaimed. "There you are. I brought you these." She held up a backpack stuffed with boxes of field rations - enough for a month. Cidrex could have eaten all of them right then.

"Set it on the ground," he said, gesturing to a bare patch with his cannon.

Nell obeyed, never taking her eyes off him. Behind her, the Exo Titan and human warlock stood a little apart, watching warily.

"They've come to destroy you," the bones whispered.

"Have you come to destroy me?" Cidrex asked.

Nell rolled her eyes. "We've come to help you, dumbass. Get out of the bush and come on."

The hunter didn't move. Doubt filled him. "Why'd you bring those two, then?"

Nell glanced at her companions. "They're my friends."

"Even him?" Cidrex said incredulously, nodding at Grant. "You brought me out here to help _kill_ him."

"Well, I was wrong," Nell snapped. "Turns out, he's a lot nicer than I realized. And even though I was so mean to him, he's still out here as backup. You know. In case you have a Devourer Bullet with my name on it."

Cidrex shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I didn't mean that. I was upset. Besides, that would wreck the ballistics."

Nell glanced at the cannon in his hand. "How many did you make?"

"Just one. But it's not for you, honest."

"Who's it for, then?"

"It's just in case. I don't know if I can trust you. Or anyone."

"Well, you can. Look." Nell drew the pistol at her belt and held it out in both hands. It was the mate of his own cannon, same model, same beautiful ivory scrollwork and bone grip.

"Where'd you get that?" he breathed.

"Same place you got yours," Nell replied. "I saw yours when it was ready for pickup. It was so gorgeous, I ordered one like a shot. Nobody told me it was a freaking _weapon of sorrow_."

Behind her, the warlock and Titan exchanged uneasy looks.

"Fellow seeker of higher knowledge," the bones whispered. "Her ascent begins."

"Your ascent begins," Cidrex echoed aloud, because it sounded profound.

Nell gave him a strange look. "What are you talking about?"

"Does it talk to you?" Cidrex said, shoving his way out of the bush at last. Nell stood still, but the warlock and Titan each took a long step back. They feared him. Good.

"Not yet," Nell said, looking her cannon over. "The smith said it might take a few days."

Abruptly, the warlock said, "Nell, what did he look like?"

She half-turned. "The smith? Kind of a short guy, blond, needed a haircut. Had a funny tattoo on his neck, but his shirt covered it up."

"Oh no," the warlock breathed.

"Servant of the dead," hissed the bones as the warlock spoke. "Dead thing. Fit only for disembodiment and consumption."

The gun flooded Cidrex with hatred. But it was a righteous hatred. The bones were perfectly, accurately truthful, and their hatred was pure and right. The warlock was worthless, just as much of an abomination as the grasshopper-scorpion.

"What's wrong?" Grant-4 asked. "Do you know this smith?"

"Less than dead," the bones whispered. "Useless. Raised by a dead power."

The bones hated Grant, too, but not as much as they hated the warlock. The gun raised Cidrex's arm to aim at the warlock's chest.

"I think I might," the warlock was saying, taking his gaze off Cidrex. "If Nell can identify him for me, then ..." He trailed off, looking grim. "Light, I did not want to have to do this."

Grant jerked his head at Cidrex. The three turned their attention back to him, as they should, because Cidrex's entire consciousness was focused on that warlock, hating everything about him.

"What are you doing?" Nell exclaimed. "Don't shoot Jayesh!"

"Dead servant of a dead power," Cidrex spat, ignoring Nell. "You would see our ally destroyed."

"What?" Jayesh's brown skin blanched. "What are you saying?"

Cidrex didn't know what he was saying. He was in an ecstasy of hate, heart pounding hate through his blood, the touch of the bone in his hand reassuring and right. There had never existed a being as loathsome as this warlock. The bones whispered and he repeated their words aloud. "Blood and death are a mercy granted to those chained in flesh. You are a foul creature of the dead, anchored in this troubled world of evil manifestations. Your departure of this plane is at hand."

"He's possessed," the warlock murmured.

Before he could say anything else, the gun demanded - pressed - screamed - that Cidrex kill him. _Now. Squeeze the trigger. Drink in his Light and leave him empty. DO IT NOW KILL KILL KILL._

Cidrex pulled the trigger. The cannon barked.

The warlock took a single step backwards. He stared at Cidrex with an outraged, disappointed look. Then his legs buckled and he toppled to the ground.

"No!" Nell shrieked. She ripped the cannon out of Cidrex's hand.

Cidrex's hate exploded inside him. He whirled on her, teeth bared, and whipped his sniper rifle off his shoulder. The barrel ignited with Void Light. Nell summoned her golden gun at the same time.

Cidrex fired at her, but Nell leaped over his head, firing at him from above. Cidrex dodged sideways with the supernatural speed granted to hunters. They fired and missed every shot. The fiery bullets and void blasts splashed instead into the trees, bushes, and grass, kindling them instantly to flame.

Nell landed as her gun disappeared, panting and drawing her sidearm. Cidrex ratcheted his sniper rifle. But a voice said, "Hold it!"

The hunters froze. Jayesh was propped up on one elbow, his white robe stained with a growing crimson splotch. In one hand, he held a bone-studded hand cannon of his own.

This was no sleek, deceptive ivory gun. It was a jagged, ugly thing, bone infused into the metal. No holster would ever hold it - the warlock must have carried it beneath his robe.

"Drop your weapons," the warlock said, his voice rough with pain. "I have six Devourer Bullets, and right now, they're all for you, Cidrex."

Pure terror blasted Cidrex, weakening his knees, dropping his hands to his sides. The hatred drained away, leaving him feeble and confused. He had shot that warlock. Nell's friend. With a bone bullet.

"Oh Light," Cidrex moaned, dropping his rifle. He pressed his hands to his face. "What did I ... It made me shoot you. I'm so sorry!"

Nell ran to Jayesh and knelt beside him, asking anxious questions. Jayesh waved her off, and Grant, too. He kept his bone cannon aimed at Cidrex. "Your life is forfeit, kid. Shin Malphur is on his way right now. You'll never -" He coughed and spat blood into the grass. "You'll never get away."

"Like hell I will!" Cidrex cried, and bolted into the cover of the woods, leaving the ivory cannon behind him.


	15. Chapter 15: Fire

As Cidrex ran, Jayesh dropped the jagged bone gun and clutched his chest.

"Can't your ghost heal you?" Nell exclaimed.

Grant was watching the fire's progress with increasing anxiety. The fire from the golden gun was spreading, the grass igniting. Flames licked up several trees, spreading across the dry wood and dead leaves. Already the fire was between them and their ships.

Phoenix phased into being and flew back and forth, playing his beam over his guardian's wound. "The bullet shattered on impact. I'm detecting twenty-six individual bone splinters. Oh Jay, they're all through your lungs and liver. One pierced your spinal cord. And some are working toward your heart."

That explained why Jayesh was sort of folded across his own legs in a weird way. Nell carefully drew his legs out straight, whispering, "Sorry," even though he couldn't feel it. She looked at his ghost. "Can't you heal him?"

"No," Phoenix said in a small voice. "They're infused with Darkness. They suck up my Light as soon as I pour it in."

Jayesh and Phoenix gazed at each other, stricken. In one moment, just one encounter gone bad, Jayesh had been given an incurable wound. He likely only had thirty minutes left to live.

"Tell Kari I'm sorry," Jayesh whispered.

Phoenix dipped toward him, agitated, not willing to abandon hope yet. "Maybe, maybe Nell can dig the splinters out." The ghost turned to Nell, his blue eye desperate.

Nell pulled out her knife and eyed Jayesh's bloodstained robe.

But he looked up at her and grabbed her arm. "Get to the ships," he rasped. "Shin Malphur is coming. You-" his voice broke on a tearing cough. "You own a weapon of sorrow. He'll kill you. I'll hold him off."

Nell looked into his desperate brown eyes and guilt tore into her with blunted talons. She had asked him to come out here. She had gotten him involved in Gambit. Now, her friend was lying here dying, offering to spend the last few minutes of his life trying to save her.

Desperate and sensing time running out, Nell turned to Grant. "What do we do?"

Grant looked at Jayesh, then scanned the trees. "Shin Malphur is right over there. He's headed this way. And the fire is spreading. We don't have time to linger. Jayesh, is this what you want? For us to leave you?"

Jayesh raised his bone cannon and pointed it at Grant, although he groaned with the pain of lifting his arm. "Take Nell and go. There's nothing you can do for me." His arm and the gun sank to the grass, and he bowed his head, gasping. Then he looked up again. "Take Phoenix. Don't let Malphur kill him."

"Jay-" the ghost began.

"Go!" Jayesh cried at him. "If I die and the splinters burn away, maybe you can revive me. But you have to live. Go!"

Phoenix phased into Nell's armor without another word.

Nell and Grant got up and ran, then, fleeing the approaching assassin and the fire. Nell's last glimpse of Jayesh was him rolling onto his side, bracing up one elbow, and aiming the weapon of sorrow in the direction of Shin Malphur.

* * *

Jayesh's entire consciousness was pain - pain and an awful blankness below his breastbone, where he no longer had any physical sensation. Each breath seemed to come through a lungful of broken glass. And yet he fought it, reaching for his Light as the bullet fragments drained it away. He tried to hum the healing song, but couldn't manage more than a second without coughing.

He wasn't afraid, only intensely frustrated. What a stupid way to die. He could heal himself if he could just draw a complete breath, and he couldn't even do that. He gripped the hand cannon, trying to rest his arm. The cannon was so heavy, and his arm so weak, he could barely lift it. And even now, frustration and anger snarled inside him. He'd stooped to bringing this disgusting weapon along, and look what had happened. What a waste. He'd lost the gamble.

Shin Malphur appeared, walking straight through a sheet of flame. The fire curled around him, not touching any of his gear, repelled by flickers of solar Light. The sight of such expert Light use - from a hunter - made Jayesh shiver a little. Shin Malphur _was not right_.

The hunter advanced, step by steady step, until he stood over Jayesh. He wore goggles that concealed his eyes, leaving only his nose and mouth showing. In one hand, he held the gold-plated hand cannon, the Last Word. In the other hand, he held the blackened, jagged cannon known only as Thorn - or a very close replica. Cold seemed to breathe off it. A green light on the barrel remarkably like an eyeball seemed to swivel and study Jayesh.

Jayesh feebly lifted his own cannon and aimed it at Shin Malphur. Malphur aimed Thorn at Jayesh's head.

They sat there like that, and the flames danced around them. Neither pulled the trigger. Jayesh's arm trembled, and finally he had to lower the heavy weapon.

Malphur lowered Thorn. "Wise of you. Devourer Bullet got you?"

Jayesh nodded, barely able to draw breath enough to speak. Blood was filling his lungs.

Malphur holstered Thorn. Then he pulled the bone cannon out of Jayesh's hand and looked at it. "You use it much?" He opened the magazine. It was empty.

Malphur's head jerked up. He looked hard at the injured warlock.

Jayesh coughed. "It was a bluff."

Shin Malphur grinned. Then he laughed. "I watched you threaten that kid. And the gun was empty. That takes guts." He turned and flung the bone gun into a pile of burning branches. "Still got the bullet in you?" He knelt and pulled open Jayesh's robe for a look at the wound. "I could dig it out. Give your ghost a chance to heal you."

Of all things, this dangerous man was offering to help him. If only Jayesh could have accepted it. He needed surgery, not field medicine.

"It shattered on impact," Jayesh panted. "Twenty-six pieces."

Malphur gazed at the wound a moment. Then he shook his head in regret and rose to his feet again. Smoke swirled around him. "I would have saved you, kid. But now it's a race to see if you bleed to death before you burn to death." He lifted Last Word. "I'm sorry about this." He slowly, gently, placed the barrel against Jayesh's forehead.

Jayesh closed his eyes. Death couldn't hurt any worse than being full of deadly bone splinters. If only he could be sure that this wasn't his final death. He reached for his Light one more time.

Last Word spoke once.

* * *

Nell and Grant heard the gunshot. A second later, their ghosts said, "Guardian down." Phoenix whispered, "Jay!"

They had run after Cidrex, who had fled uphill, toward the Shard. The fire raced after them, fast as a guardian could run, leaping through the treetops, driven by its own wind. The ground fire followed behind.

Grant's head turned this way and that, the six antennae on his head fully extended as he tracked signals. "The idiot needs to turn west. Sentry, message his ghost. He must leave the fire's path!"

"Jayesh," Nell whispered, looking back into the fire. Somewhere, her brave friend had just died to Shin Malphur. Had the bone consumed his spark?

"Few are worthy of the final shape," whispered her bone cannon. She'd picked up Cidrex's cannon, too, and it seemed to make both guns stronger. When they found a good spot, she was going to throw them into the fire.

Grant growled in frustration and turned to Nell. "Cidrex says he's trapped up there somewhere, but the fire has him surrounded."

"What do we do?" Nell said. The heat and smoke were making it hard to breathe. She pulled on her helmet and activated the air filters.

Grant looked up the hill, then at the treetops, which were already catching. The main body of the fire was an approaching roar.

"Run west," he said, pointing. It was downhill, and not yet aflame. "I will rescue Cidrex. Try to reach the ships. Transmat, if you can. If not, I will catch up. You must stay safe - you have Jayesh's ghost."

Nell gaped at him. "How will you get through the fire?"

Grant closed his eyes. "I'm an Exo. The fire won't hurt me as it would hurt you. Now go!" He wheeled and charged uphill, straight into the flames.

Nell ran west, downhill, parallel to the oncoming wall of flame. If she could cut across it, she could get behind it, where everything was burned and the fire was dying away. But the smoke was so thick, she could only see about ten feet in any direction.

"Hadrian, guide me!"

Her ghost displayed a map with nav points inside her helmet. "We may still make it. The fire makes a long curve south three hundred feet ahead. For now, run!"

Nell ran, trying not to think about Jayesh lying dead, or Grant making a suicidal run through the fire, or Cidrex, who might burn to death as Grant tried to rescue him. Cidrex could be resurrected, of course, but right now, Nell was so angry at him, she didn't care. He'd murdered Jayesh because of his_ stupid_ gun. And Grant was still trying to save him.

"Titans are better people than hunters," she said to her ghost. "I'd let Cidrex burn up for what he did to Jayesh."

"He was under the influence of the bones," Hadrian replied. "Show a little mercy, Nell."

"I'm trying, but right now I just want to cry. Phoenix, you still here?"

"Yes," the ghost replied over her helmet radio.

"Is Jayesh's spark gone?"

"No," Phoenix replied. His voice was dull and flat. "The Light persists. But I can't reach him until the fire dies down, and that may be hours. I don't know if he can last that long. He's so weak from that Devourer Bullet."

Nell kept running through the trees, leaping boulders and logs, stumbling and getting up again. The roar of the fire was closer. Heat beat against her clothing and armor, making her sweat. It felt like a hot day in August.

Suddenly the air cleared a little, and the roar grew softer. Nell emerged in a clear space with fewer trees and lots of glowing blue flowers. The fire was further away with less dry fuel to burn.

"Keep moving," Hadrian said. "Grant is coming back with Cidrex."

"Shin Malphur's moving toward our position, too," Phoenix said.

"I see him," Hadrian said, dropping a flag on Nell's screen.

Nell blinked at the flag's position. "How is that possible? He's walking straight through the fire!"

"He's using Solar Light to shield himself," Phoenix said, his voice still apathetic. "Jayesh was learning to do it."

"Is Shin a hunter or a warlock?"

"Hunter?" Hadrian said doubtfully.

"He's whatever he wants," Phoenix said. "We met him before. He doesn't observe class disciplines the way the Vanguard does. Nell, get rid of those guns."

Nell looked around. "But I need a good fire, and we're too far away."

"He'll murder you for having them," Phoenix said. "He'll think you've gone rogue. Two weapons of sorrow?"

"But I don't want them!" Nell cried. "I want to destroy them! I just can't do it right this instant!"

Footsteps crunched behind her. Nell whirled to see Grant emerge from the trees. The Titan carried Cidrex, who was wrapped in his Hunter cloak for protection against the flames. Grant reached Nell and set Cidrex on his feet. Cidrex immediately doubled up and groaned, half his body red and scorched. His ghost appeared and began to heal him.

Grant's ghost healed him, too, but he ignored her. Instead, he stared toward the oncoming fire. "Shin Malphur is hunting us. Our only hope is to reach the ships before he reaches us."

"The fire has driven us away from them," his ghost said, healing him with bursts of Light, her shell open. "We're just out of range. If we can move closer, I can call the ship."

Cidrex rose to his feet, rubbing his arms. He glimpsed his gun in Nell's hand and reached for it. She whipped it away from him. "No you don't."

"But it's mine!"

"Not after you murdered Jayesh with it, asshole."

Cidrex withdrew his hand. "Is that who just died?"

"Malphur executed him," Grant said grimly. "Sentry, I'm healed enough. Let's move."

The three guardians hurried across the meadow, wading through the blue flowers, surrounded by their strange scent. To their left and behind them, the fire leaped into the sky, fifty, sixty feet high, hungry red flames and billows of black smoke. There were no firefighters to put it out, no human beings for miles. The fire would simply consume the region until it burned itself out. In the midst of it all, the Shard of the Traveler stood impervious.

As they reached the treeline, Grant halted with a soft curse. Shin Malphur was already there, waiting for them, holding Last Word and Thorn at his sides.

"Get behind me," Grant muttered to Cidrex and Nell. Then he spread his arms and threw up a Ward of Dawn - a bubble of blue energy that protected them from incoming projectiles.

"Clever," Malphur said. "But ultimately useless."

"Leave us alone," Grant snarled, his mouth flashing with orange light. "You already murdered one man."

"Yes, you might call it that," Malphur replied. "I ended his suffering, but I do not willingly kill the innocent. You, Titan. Your Light is uncorrupted. You may go. I only want the other two."

"Is it because of these guns?" Nell said, peeking around Grant. "We don't want them. I was trying to find a good spot to burn them."

Malphur studied her, measuring her in that strange way known only to himself. "You carry the dead man's ghost," he observed. "Yet your Light bears the taint of Darkness. Are you one of the Drifter's Dredgens?"

"Not yet," Nell replied.

Malphur slowly grinned - a predatory grin, like a shark that had scented blood. "I know you now, Nell. Top ranked invader. Your ghost is part Servitor. Part of the team that slew Riven. And yet you're foolish enough to lay hand to bone."

"I didn't know what it was!" Nell exclaimed. "The smith told me it was ivory inlay."

Malphur's smile vanished. "Smith?"

"Yes, that weapon smith guy who made both these cannons. I paid a ton of glimmer, too."

Malphur twirled Thorn in one hand. "Where did you meet this smith?"

"He has a shop in the City, out in District thirty-five. What are you going to do? Murder him, too?"

"Did he have a tattoo?" Malphur said. "On his neck?"

"Yeah, he did.

"Well well," Malphur said softly. "You've been hoodwinked by a real Shadow of Yor. He knew I'd eliminate you and save him the trouble. Hand over the guns and I'll let you walk free."

Nell tossed both cannons through the force field. They landed with a clang at Malphur's feet. He ignored them. "And now for Cidrex. Oh yes, I know your name, Hunter. You used a Devourer Bullet to end a good man."

Cidrex hid behind Grant. "The gun made me do it! It screamed at me to fire!"

"You still pulled the trigger," Malphur replied. "The weapons of sorrow do many things. But they can't fire themselves."

"I didn't know!" Cidrex cried. "Look, I just wanted the decoration. I didn't know it was going to take over my mind. I didn't mean to kill that warlock. I didn't!"

Shin Malphur was silent, still twirling Thorn in a purposeful way. Behind him, the forest fire swept closer. Smoke clouded the air outside the shield. Grant couldn't maintain it forever, and then Cidrex would die. Nell wasn't sure he didn't deserve it. But she didn't know if she could handle having two friends gunned down today.

She summoned her golden gun and aimed it at Shin Malphur. "You know, let's talk about you. You're a Guardian killer. You give them no chance to straighten themselves out or seek the Light. And you stand there with the original weapon of sorrow like a damn hypocrite. What makes you so much better than us?"

"I know the limits of such power," Shin said, now holding Thorn steady, trained on her. "You young guardians are all the same. Given half a chance, you'd return to the ways of the Warlords. Power. Wealth. All gained at the expense of those you trample underfoot. Tell me, Guardian Nell. Do your loyalties lie with the Vanguard and the Last City? Or with Gambit?"

"Don't answer him," Hadrian whispered in her mind. "Please Nell, don't ..."

She thought about it for a few seconds. While she had a lukewarm allegiance to the Vanguard, and she liked the Drifter, her real loyalty was to her ghost.

"My ghost," she said.

Malphur nodded once. "Then you are loyal only to yourself. As were the Warlords. You are a threat to the Vanguard and the Last City."

Grant muttered, "Good going, loudmouth."

"He asked a question!" Nell hissed. The shield was beginning to flicker.

"He wasn't going to kill you before," Grant said, straining to hold the shield a little longer. "And now you will not leave this spot alive. Stay behind me. I will save you if I can."

"Oh no," Nell said, waving her golden gun. "He's getting three shots with this. Let's see how strong he really is."

Shin Malphur only smiled at this. Thorn was rock-steady in his hand.

Outside the weakening shield, a blast of wind flattened the blue flowers and bent the treetops. The forest fire leaped into the sky, twining into a column like a tornado. All of them looked up and gasped.

The fire-tornado gathered the flames and heat of the entire forest fire into a single twisting inferno that stretched upward into the clouds. In its heart floated a human figure. Burning wings spread from its shoulders, a fiery angel of Light. It stared toward them, its eyes glints of burning white. Then it turned and flew in their direction, the fire roaring like a freight train, charring everything to ash in its path.

"Who is that?" Cidrex breathed.

"It can't be Jayesh," Nell said. "He could never do something like that."

Phoenix materialized in a flash of flame. His red and yellow shell was wreathed in flickering Solar Light. "It is Jayesh!" he cried. "And oh, Mr. Malphur, he is not happy with you."

Shin Malphur gazed up at the approaching tower of fiery doom. And he laughed.


	16. Chapter 16: Sunsinger

Death was sudden, a welcome release from the pain. Jayesh stepped aside from himself and was instantly back in his dreams of wandering the blue forest around the Shard of the Traveler.

He didn't think about being shot, or shot again, or his friends, or anything. He simply climbed the hill toward the Shard, as he had every time he dreamed. There was no fire here, only stillness that was not peace. He thought that he had feet, and legs, and hands, but he was aware that he lacked everything - as a spirit, he had no shape.

"Phoenix?" he called. "Have you found the song?"

Phoenix didn't answer, but Jayesh felt his burst of grief.

"Don't mourn me yet," Jayesh said. "I'm here, little light. I just need to find my song."

He knew he was dead and it didn't matter. He climbed the hill, wading through blue flowers, pushing aside hanging moss studded with blue stars. The Shard arched above him, hummed with Light and Darkness entwined - a resonant ringing hum that would have hurt his ears had he been alive.

Jayesh's being resonated, too, like a plucked guitar string. But he was out of tune with the Shard. Did he want to tune himself to it? Now that he stood on the hilltop, gazing at the great broken pieces, he didn't know if he wanted this.

Here, the Light was broken. He was broken. The Shard could never be mended. But Jayesh wanted to be whole - his entire being ached for wholeness. For a while, the Shard had spoken to him, its brokenness calling to his brokenness. But here, on the other side, away from his damaged brain, he was free to see himself as he truly was.

And he laughed. "That's why I couldn't find my song. I was listening to the wrong melody." He turned his back on the Shard, looking instead to the heavens. "I am to sing the song of suns and stars."

The solar system spread before him, a fiery yellow sun with tiny planets in its train, orbiting the galactic center, singing as it spun. Great loops of electromagnetic energy leaped from the sun's surface, a high note like an electric guitar riff, descending the scale as the loop sank back into the sun. The planets sang, too, but the sun was the mightiest instrument of all.

Jayesh listened with his whole being. He pulled his fractured self together. It was difficult, trying to overcome himself, his own pain and weakness. He struggled and writhed. He pulled in a tiny fraction of the sun's light and poured it into the void inside him where his Dawnblade had been. The space filled with fire - the musical fire of the sun. Was this his song? Jayesh tried an experimental note. It rang across the cosmic spaces.

The Sun noticed him.

+a last singer+

The voice brushed his consciousness, distant and strange - strange as if he had heard dust itself speak. It was neither good nor evil - it simply existed. It burned with Solar Light, but itself was not the Light.

Jayesh hung there, staring at the sun, and suddenly wished to have his body back. As a spirit, he was thin and naked, unprotected from this being that now examined him. He couldn't even raise his hands to fend off a blow, because he had none.

+sunsinger+

_Yes?_

+use Light on my behalf+

+do not let the darkness destroy us+

_That's why I want to become a Sunsinger. Uh. Sir._

For an instant, Jayesh sensed that the planets were aware of him. Nine sentient beings examined him, discussed him, ignored him or despised him. If they decided to take his soul as their own, he would crumble in their immaterial grasp. His spirit seemed so fragile, so exposed. He tried to shrink and hide from their sight.

The sun flashed with sudden Light, filling space with a musical note so overwhelming, Jayesh thought his ghostly substance would fly apart. He repeated the note, unable to do anything else.

Then he was back on the blue hillside beneath the Shard, his being still resonating. This time, the Traveler filled the sky above it - the Traveler as it had been, the only damage being the holes in the underside that matched the fallen Shard. In this disembodied world, the Traveler radiated a majesty Jayesh had not felt since he had been trapped inside it. He gazed up at it with a glad sense of homecoming.

"Sing," it said.

Jayesh sang the note the Sun had given him.

"No," the Traveler said. "Sing yourself."

Himself.

The warlock who used fire and healing.

The man obsessed with truth.

The father who loved his son.

The husband devoted to his wife.

The frightened child who wanted to hide from the harshness of the world.

The warrior who slew enemies with a fiery blade.

The healer who had compassion on the sick and injured until he spent himself.

The tumblers of the lock that was Jayesh clicked into place one by one. He straightened, facing the Traveler, new understanding flowing through him.

The song he must sing was the song of his own heart.

He sang it. And the Traveler at last sang with him.

Fire. Solar fire from the heart of the Sun. He worked the chord into his song. His soul flared with its own fiery Light, flickering, dancing, rejoicing, at once warming and burning.

He found the strength to reach for the other side, where his body lay dead and abandoned, burned nearly to ash by the inferno there. He bathed it in healing fire, brushing away the wretched bone splinters, healing every injury, healing his brain, healing himself. Returning to his body was like returning to protective armor, to a sense of reality, to the ability to hide from the sight of those Nine beings. He sucked a breath of air into his repaired lungs and leaped from the ground. The fire went with him because the song went on and on. Not powered by his voice - his vocal chords couldn't produce those sounds - but in his heart, carried back from the other side, the Traveler's deep melody backing him.

Fire! It wreathed him, it trailed from his shoulders in a pair of wings, it sheathed him like a shield. He tried every exercise Cal had ever taught him and performed them effortlessly. He laughed aloud and tears ran down his cheeks, evaporating instantly. He was whole. He was a Sunsinger. He had the Light again.

And now -

Floating high above the blazing forest, he reached out and gathered the fire around him. It leaped to greet him, powered by the burning forest, Light mixed with the flames. The corrupted forest around the Shard of the Traveler was being purged, and the very Light rejoiced.

"Phoenix!" Jayesh called.

His voice was a song for his ghost, a piece of the melody of his heart. In his empowered state, he could have called his ghost from across the solar system.

But Phoenix was close by, blazing with his Guardian, ecstatic. "Jayesh! Look at you! My Sunsinger!"

"Are the others safe?" Jayesh said.

Phoenix sent him snapshots: Grant, Nell and Cidrex under a failing Ward of Dawn. Shin Malphur waiting to kill them.

Jayesh oriented to them, a quarter mile in the sky, surrounded by roaring flames and billowing heat. He saw his friends being held at gunpoint by Shin Malphur. And he soared toward them, surrounded by fiery destruction.

"Phoenix," he said, "tell the others to run. I'll deal with Malphur."

"Should I go with Nell?"

The question dampened Jayesh's joy a little. "Are you afraid of me?"

"No ... I just thought ... you're not safe."

Phoenix was daunted by Jayesh's sheer power. This wasn't the gentle healer he'd grown used to. Jayesh softened his song, reaching out with tenderness. "I've never been safe, Phoenix. Fire is in my blood. And I need you. Come here, little Light."

Phoenix vanished and traveled in phase until he appeared in front of Jayesh, his shell trailing fire in wings like his Guardian's. They inspected each other, ghost and Guardian. Then Jayesh swept Phoenix beneath his shield of fire and hugged the little robot close.

"What happened to you?" Phoenix whispered.

"I met things on the other side," Jayesh whispered back. "I'll tell you later. Stay phased, now. I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing."

"Shin Malphur will try to kill you."

"Do I look killable right now to you?" Jayesh laughed and spun in a circle. "I'm a Sunsinger! Tell their ghosts to get their guardians clear. I'm going to turn that whole area into a crater."

"You got it, boss."

* * *

Grant saw the Sunsinger coming and knew they had to run, or die.

The big Exo dropped his Ward of Dawn, grabbed Cidrex and Nell each by the arm, and fled south, along the edge of the forest. Shin Malphur let them go, his attention fixed on the approaching firestorm.

"Jayesh says for us to run," Sentry said in Grant's head. "I told him he's a little late for that."

"You know, a while back," Grant thought, "when I told you warlocks scared me, and you laughed?"

"I'm solidly on your side, now," Sentry said, her voice shaky. "That is the scariest warlock I've ever seen."

Cidrex and Nell ran on either side of him, terrified, pulling Grant along with their slightly superior speed. His left hand gripped Cidrex by the forearm, and the hunter made no move to change this. But Nell shifted until her hand clasped Grant's.

They reached the edge of the fire and plunged into the burn. The fire was gone, every last flicker sucked away by Jayesh's power. But the ground radiated heat, feeding into Jayesh's fire tornado. The ground was black, the trees were black and limbless. Everywhere was ash, smoldering embers, and falling limbs. There wasn't a breath of air stirring.

The three Guardians ran through this sleeping forest fire, the hot, dry air parching their mouths and scorching their lungs. Their ghosts constantly healed their feet and legs as the ground melted their boots into their feet.

In the distance, something boomed like a bomb had gone off. Fire whistled in a descending scream and a second boom followed. The ground trembled and the trees swayed.

"I'm detecting huge amounts of Void Light," Sentry reported. "I think ... did Shin Malphur just use Nova Bomb?"

"He did!" Hadrian cried. "I saw it on scan! And Jayesh countered with this wave of fire. They're fighting now, I wish I could see it -"

Another screech and boom, followed by a popping crackle like fireworks. Green light blazed into the sky beyond the trees. Lightning leaped from tree to tree.

"Malphur's got his Arcstrider staff going," Sentry said. "Just knocked a load of fire back at Jayesh. And Jayesh did this loop thing and turned it to plasma."

Another earthshaking boom. A shockwave of Light passed through the burned forest. Glowing orange things rained from the sky and stuck in the ground and trees. Knives of Light. They flickered and vanished after a moment.

A series of flashes lit the horizon. Then came a series of explosions, the sound traveling slower than the light.

"I can't tell what's happening," Sentry said. "It's so fast and so powerful, my sensors only show a blur."

A sound echoed across the sky - like the groan of an enormous beast. But it was caused by energy, not vocal chords.

"Electromagnetic resonance!" Hadrian cried. "Sentry, shield your Guardian!"

Sentry barely caught it in time. Grant's body went heavy, his vision blurred, and a wave of dizziness struck him. He stumbled and nearly fell into the hot ash. But Sentry blocked the energy that had nearly cooked his mechanical body. The hunters steadied him, and he kept running.

"Calling our ships!" Hadrian said. "Keep moving, we'll transmat you aboard!"

His voice was drowned out by a crack of thunder that turned the sky dark for a second. Then suddenly the forest fire returned, whooshing to life around them. Jayesh had lost his hold on it.

"I think Malphur won the fight," Nell croaked.

"Not the way I wanted it to go," Cidrex panted nearby.

A moment later, Nell and Grant's ships flew above the trees. Their ghosts transmatted them aboard, Grant into his, Nell and Cidrex into hers.

Grant groaned and slumped in the pilot seat for a moment. His entire body screamed with pain alerts. Something was wrong with his ankle and knee joints - he feared they'd been fused together by the heat.

And yet he couldn't relax his guard yet. The mission wasn't completed.

"Sentry," he whispered, "circle back. Find Jayesh."

The ship banked to the right and cut a long loop in midair. Sentry floated at the control panel, her shell jigging back and forth as she worked. Grant closed his eyes and suffered. She couldn't heal him just yet. His vision threatened to fade to black.

"Incoming," she announced suddenly.

Jayesh transmatted into the copilot seat in a sparkle of light. He slumped there, head drooping to one side, unconscious. The remains of his robe were burned black. His ghost materialized beside him and began healing him.

"I've called his ship," Phoenix said, his voice overly-modulated with weariness. "It's headed home on autopilot. Get us out of here."

Grant nodded to Sentry, who directed the ship to set course for the Last City.

"My good girl," Grant whispered. Then his consciousness slipped away entirely.

* * *

Jayesh awakened as medical staff hauled him out of the copilot seat and onto a stretcher. "I'm fine," he protested feebly. "I can walk. I'm fine."

He blacked out, then. He awoke later, as they slid him onto a hospital bed. Kari was there, Connor in her arms, both watching him with frightened expressions.

Jayesh smiled at them. "I'm all right," he assured them. "Look, Phoenix healed me." He tried to sit up and blacked out again.

He awoke again, much later. The hospital room was quiet. An IV was hooked into his left wrist, two bags of fluid steadily dripping into his veins. Phoenix lay on a small pillow beside him, a wire hooked into the back of his core, his eye extinguished. The wire was plugged into some kind of device with a lot of blinking lights and a tiny screen. The red and yellow shell was scorched black on the corners.

"Phoenix?" He touched his ghost with his free hand.

The blue eye blinked on. "Jaaaaaay," Phoenix slurred. His eye went out again.

"What's happened to you?" Jayesh said, struggling to turn over. His whole body felt like lead. He tugged the ghost's pillow an inch closer and covered the ghost with his good hand. "Whatever happened, I'm sorry."

Jayesh wasn't aware of fainting that time. He snapped awake as Phoenix was slipped out from under his hand. He fought, clinging to his ghost, struggling against the IV, thinking he'd been tied up.

"Calm down, calm down," said a doctor in a blue lab coat. "We're moving you both to a different room. Your ghost is safe."

Jayesh relaxed and slumped back against the pillow. "What's wrong with us?"

He never heard the answer.

He awoke later in a different room. Phoenix was asleep on Jayesh's chest, no longer hooked to any machines. Another bed stood beside theirs. Grant-4 lay on this bed, his orange eyes fixed on Jayesh. His legs were propped up on metal stands, the exterior skin pared away, revealing the surprisingly wet-looking fibers and cords inside an Exo leg. Two other Exos worked on his legs with delicate tools, his ghost supervising.

"Hey," Jayesh said.

"Hey," Grant replied.

"What happened to you?" Jayesh asked.

Grant gestured to the surgery going on. "I ran through fire until my armor fused into my legs. Removing it removed much of my synthetic muscle."

Jayesh rubbed a hand across his face. The other hand was still hooked to an IV. "What happened to me? And my ghost?"

"Light burn," Grant replied. "You used more Light than your body could physically handle."

That was right. He had gathered an entire forest fire to fight Shin Malphur. And Malphur had hurled Light at him in return - impossible Nova Bombs, electric bolts, fiery knives.

"You should have stayed dead," Malphur had said from behind the cover of a spinning arc staff. "People don't recover from a splintered Devourer Bullet."

Jayesh had flung fireballs at him that exploded on impact. "Sunsingers can resurrect themselves."

"You think this will save your friends?" Malphur laughed, knocking the fireballs back at Jayesh. "You've prolonged their lives and extended their suffering."

Jayesh caught each fireball and converted them to jets of plasma, then took a fourth to the midsection. His flame shield absorbed the energy, but the impact still knocked him winding.

"I've given them a second chance," he gasped. "I'm trying ... to be merciful." He collected the static electricity generated by his fire and blasted Malphur with lightning.

Malphur collected it in his arc staff and redirected it at Jayesh, who deflected it into the ground. A portion of the hillside exploded.

"Mercy accomplishes nothing," Malphur panted. "Had I not shot you, you'd have died a slow, lingering death."

"We'll never know, now," Jayesh snarled. "Those young Guardians need guidance, not death. The Hunters have no Vanguard." He drew on the chord of the sun, drawing out that powerful loop of energy, longer than the Earth's own orbit. He dropped it on Shin Malphur, who vanished an instant before the blow fell.

Jayesh's memory had a blank spot in it there. He must have cooked himself with that final attack. He vaguely remembered being pulled off a ship, but nothing beyond that.

"How did I get back to the ship?" he asked, rubbing his forehead.

"I hunted you down and transmatted you aboard," Grant said. "Or my ghost did. Titans never leave teammates behind."

Jayesh grinned, touched and unable to show it. "Thanks, man. I owe you one."

Grant nodded and grinned as much as an Exo could.

Jayesh stroked Phoenix, who still lay unconscious on his chest. "Poor little guy. He was actually scared of me at first. I hope I didn't fry him. They had him hooked to some machine."

"A Light stabilizer," said one of the doctors working on Grant. "They're used on ghosts who have been exposed to critical amounts of Light flux."

"Critical amounts," Jayesh said faintly. "But ... aren't Guardians and ghosts made of Light?"

"Why do you think Shaxx makes Guardians sign a waiver during the Mayhem events?" said a doctor. "Using a supercharge for extended periods of time begins to break down your molecules. If you died and resurrected every few minutes, it wouldn't be a problem. But that much Light in a single life? You burned yourself to the core, Guardian."

"Will I recover?" Jayesh asked. Another injury on top of the ones he had received in the Dreaming City. He was so tired of being the walking wounded.

"Sure," said the doctor. "Bed rest and fluids. You'll be back on your feet in a day or so. Now, this idiot? It'll be a bit longer."

"I was _saving lives_," Grant retorted. "Nell and Cidrex sustained burns, too."

"Not to this extent," a doctor replied. "And their ghosts had them mostly mended by the time they reached the Tower."

"Heroes, both of us," Jayesh said, reaching out a fist. Grant extended his own, and they bumped fists across the aisle.

Jayesh lay back and closed his eyes. When he opened them, hours had passed. Grant was asleep, his legs encased in square braces with clamps holding them shut. The medical ward was quiet, and a clock on the wall said it was a quarter past midnight.

Phoenix had been moved to a pillow beside Jayesh's head. He hadn't stirred.

What if he had died, and nobody had realized? Jayesh's heart jolted with the beginnings of panic. He rolled onto his side and pulled his ghost close, peering into the closed eye. The protective eyelid was irised tightly shut.

"Phoenix," he thought. "Wake up, little guy."

He felt his ghost's spark flicker in response.

"Hey," Jayesh thought to him. "We're both phoenixes now. We've both resurrected in fire."

"I was Phoenix ... first," came the ghost's voice, slow and slurred, as if he'd taken a severe blow to the head. The eyelid slowly blinked open, the blue eye flickering on.

Jayesh smiled. After a moment, the somewhat bleary blue eye emoted a smile, too.

"How do you feel?" Jayesh asked.

Phoenix floated into the air a few inches, then dropped back onto the pillow. "Like I've been burned up, hit by lightning, then had to run a marathon. I put you back together after you blew yourself up, but that was all I could do."

"Sorry," Jayesh whispered.

"Don't be sorry!" Phoenix replied. "You were magnificent! The things you did with your Light? What in the world did you see when you died?"

Jayesh tried to explain it. Phoenix listened raptly, never taking his eye off his beloved Guardian's face.

As Jayesh wound down, Grant said from the other bed, "Must you have this touching reunion at one o'clock in the morning?"

"Sorry!" Jayesh exclaimed. They had forgotten to speak mind to mind. He clumsily tucked his ghost under his chin and curled up. "Let's sleep and recover, Phoenix. I'm so glad you're all right."

"And I'm glad you're well, too," Phoenix whispered.


	17. Chapter 17: Resolutions

"You said this wouldn't happen anymore!" Kari said.

Jayesh had just been discharged from the hospital after three days of bed rest. He walked back to his apartment, feeling better than he had in months, only to be greeted by Kari's rage as he walked in.

She had been lying on the couch, deep in the clutches of morning sickness, while Connor scattered blocks across the entire living room. When Jayesh arrived, she came to life and leaped off the couch like an attacking lioness.

"You promised me!" Kari yelled. "You said you wouldn't come home half-dead again!"

Jayesh held up both hands and edged around her, into the room. "Kari, I didn't mean to - I can explain -"

"You always explain!" she yelled, following him. "You always have a good reason and I can't take it anymore! One of these days, you won't come back at all!"

They stared at each other. Kari was panting, her face flushed, fists clenched at her sides. Lightning flickered in her eyes and at the ends of her tousled hair. She was dangerous and beautiful and infuriating.

And Jayesh knew she was right. Guilt crawled through him. He had promised her to stay out of trouble, and he had broken that promise.

"Kari," he began.

"Don't," she snapped. "I know what you're going to say. You were saving someone. You were being a hero. When they hauled you off that jumpship, I thought you were dead. Your ghost looked dead. And _I_ died, Jayesh. I _died_ to see you that way."

They stood there in silence, staring at each other. Connor watched them from across the room, fingers in his mouth. His ghost floated close beside him, watching in concern.

"Kari," Jayesh tried again.

She whipped up a hand, palm outward, to cut him off. Lightning crawled across her fingers. "You Light-burned yourself, you careless bastard. What the hell did you do? Blow up half the planet? When you left, you_ had_ no Light!"

"Will you let me talk?" he asked.

She drew a breath to shout him down, hesitated, then nodded, glaring death at him.

"I'm a Sunsinger," he said.

"Well, bully for you," Kari snapped.

He pressed on, growing angry, himself. "That kid shot me with a Devourer Bullet and Phoenix couldn't heal me. But it splintered and didn't take my Light. Then Shin Malphur came -"

"Shin Malphur," Kari said, her voice breaking on the syllables. "Why is he always after you?"

"He killed me this time. And I found my song on the other side. I resurrected myself, Kari! In fire!"

The lightning was subsiding from its dance over her hands and hair. She was listening, interested despite herself.

"I picked up a whole forest fire," Jayesh went on. "Malphur was going to kill the others, so I went after him with it. He put up a decent fight. That's what happened."

They gazed at each other a moment in silence. Kari folded her arms and turned away. Jayesh was half-angry half-ashamed, and all he wanted to do was put his arms around her. But she'd probably punch him.

"They said you'd hurt yourself," she said over her shoulder. "The doctors said that Light burn can kill a Guardian's ghost. And Phoenix was almost dead. You both were. And I just ... not again. Not so soon." She finally looked at him and her eyes were full of tears. "Don't leave me a single mother."

She was angry at him because she cared so very much. His own anger fading, he stepped forward and touched her shoulder. "It's all right, lovelight. I'm well, now. When I resurrected, I healed all the psychic damage." He gently pulled her into his arms. She didn't resist.

"I was so scared," she whispered against his chest. "You were covered in ash and soot and your clothes were mostly gone ... and Phoenix ..."

"I'm here," the ghost said, phasing into sight beside them. "I'm all right. They stabilized me pretty fast."

Kari pulled him into their embrace. "You keep him alive, you little snot. Don't let him kill you with his heroics."

"I'm tougher than that," Phoenix said proudly. "Now my Guardian is a phoenix, too."

Jayesh stroked Kari's hair and kissed her. "I'm sorry, love. I'm so sorry."

"A Devourer Bullet," she breathed. "You should be dead. I should be a widow. Again."

"I almost was," Jayesh admitted. "It hurt so bad. But I'm well now. I can't explain how much better I feel. And I can talk to the Traveler again."

"You can?" Kari pulled away and searched his face.

He nodded, beaming. "It's like I'm finally home. But I'm ... more, now. I don't even understand what's happened to me."

"Your Light is brighter," Kari said. "It's ... you again." She hugged him tightly. "Oh Jay, I'm so glad you're here. And you're alive and healed."

They sat on the sofa and cuddled each other. Connor climbed up into his daddy's lap and received hugs, too. Jayesh held his little family and gave thanks for them, basking in their love and glowing with love, himself. It worked on Kari as healing, easing her nausea. It worked on Connor as happiness, sending him running around the apartment, chasing his ghost and giggling.

Jayesh took it on himself to clean up the scattered blocks and make dinner that night as a quiet apology to Kari. She noticed at once and accepted it. By the time they went to bed that night, they were friends again - and lovers once more.

* * *

Grant remained in the hospital as they slowly rebuilt his legs. At first, they kept his nerves shut off at the waist. But when the reconstruction reached a certain point, they had to reactivate the nerves to make sure he could feel each repaired micro section.

It also meant that he was in pain most of the time.

The Exos working on him were different models that didn't have the type of neurosensory network Grant did. When he complained about the pain, they blew him off. "You're an Exo. There's limits to how much you can actually feel."

But to Grant, there was no limit. Often he envied Jayesh's ability to faint. After that first time, Grant remained grimly awake through all ensuing surgeries and tests. There were no drugs for his mechanical body - nothing to dull the sensation of metal tools tugging his muscles and tendons into place. When they reattached his Achilles tendon, he gripped the bed rail so hard that it snapped in two.

His third night in the hospital, his legs were locked in braces like usual, and the pain was like liquid fire immersing each foot and leg. He lay there, panting, suffering, gazing at his ghost, who couldn't heal him until he'd been reconstructed.

Someone knocked softly on the door. After a moment, it opened, and Nell slipped in, active camouflage fading from her clothing in purple ripples. She wore faded jeans and a T-shirt, like any Tower civilian. Her black hair was pinned back with eight different barrettes, all different colors. She looked young, and alive, and out of place in a hospital room.

She hesitated by the door, taking in Grant and the braces clamped to his legs. He turned his head to look at her, and beckoned with one hand.

"Wow," Nell murmured. "You look terrible." She arrived at the side of the bed, looking him up and down. Grant wore no clothing but a sheet around his waist, his sculpted metal body bare for all to see.

"Should I be offended?" he replied. "I thought I looked manly."

Nell snorted. "Not that. I mean those things on your legs. And the way you look." She touched the side of his face. "You're hurt."

Grant relished this attention and drank it up. Not only was sympathy a wonderful thing, sympathy from Nell was the best. He smiled and took her hand.

Nell sat beside him on the bed. "I'm not supposed to be in here. The nurses have chased me out twice. So I waited until the night shift came in, and I sneaked in with my camo active."

Grant studied her, panting a little from the pain. "That was cunning of you. I thought you were still in the Praxic Order's rehab."

"I've been released," Nell said, waving a hand dismissively. "I only heard the whispers a few times, and they hadn't taken much hold. Cidrex might be in for a while, though. He was pretty messed up."

Grant nodded. "Why did you try so hard to come see me? I thought ..." He trailed off.

"You thought what?" Nell said, glancing at his legs. "That I'd forgotten all about you?"

Grant collected his muddled thoughts. Blast, it was hard to think with his legs still half-built. "I'm only an Exo. I thought that you ... that I'm ..."

"Spit it out," said Nell.

He shut his eyes and said the words. "That you only endure my presence because of the fascination of having a pet monster."

Nell didn't answer.

Grant dared to open his eyes and look at her. Nell was biting her lips very hard. Tears glistened in her eyes. "That's what you thought I thought of you?"

He nodded.

Nell clasped his hand in both of hers. "Grant, I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. Did I call you a monster at some point? Is that why you thought that?"

"No," he said quietly. "Look at me, Nell. I barely resemble a human being. This artificial body gives me the look of an ogre."

Nell sat very still, gazing at him. A tear ran down her cheek and dripped onto the sheets. She angrily swiped at it. "Okay, maybe I did think that when we were fighting in Gambit. You make a really good ogre, you know that?"

Grant didn't know how to take that.

Nell went on, "But these last few days ... being arrested and such ... and the way you worked so hard to save everyone out there ... I'm having a schism, here." She pressed both hands to her temples. "It's like there's two of you. One is this Exo who killed me in Gambit all the time. And the other is this sweet man who held me in that prison cell and let me kiss him. I can't seem to put the two of you together."

Grant listened to this, a warm glow filling his hearts.

"And now," Nell went on, gesturing at his legs, "you're all torn up and they won't let me to see you, even though we're on a fireteam. And look at you. You're in pain. I didn't know Exos could feel pain."

"How do you know?" Grant said. "I haven't said anything."

"Your eyes," she replied. "Your pupils are huge, like a cat's. And you talk so slow. And you move all slow and weird. If you were human, you'd be sweating buckets." She stroked his forehead. "Poor metal man. Can't they give you something for it?"

"No," Grant replied. "Drugs don't work on me. The best they can do is put that ring on me, which keeps me unconscious. But I can't wear it all the time." He pointed to a metal ring on the bedside table, like a halo encrusted with instruments.

"Point is," Nell said, "yeah, you look kind of monstrous. But you don't act monstrous. You're as nice as Jayesh, and he's super nice, when he's not being an asshat." She ran her hand across his head, touching the metal nodes where his scan antennae were retracted.

Grant almost wanted to cry. He hurt so badly, and Nell honestly liked him for who he was, not how he looked. He felt like he'd come to the end of himself and was caught there, even though he so desperately wanted to move on and get this over with.

Nell bent down and pressed her cheek against his. But when she moved to kiss him, he turned his face away.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Don't," he said. "Last time, you only kissed me because you wanted to know what it was like to kiss a monster."

He ventured another look at her. Nell's face crumpled with tears. "How do you know that?" she whispered. "Light, Grant." She turned her back on him and buried her face in her hands.

After a moment, he ventured to pat her on the back. "But ... you know what? I forgive you."

"You do?" she said over her shoulder.

"You came to visit me here," he said. "I didn't expect that. I thought you'd probably never want to see me again. After all, our terrifying warlock will be the popular one."

Nell turned back around and rested her chin on one knee, gazing at him thoughtfully. Her eyelids were red, but she seemed calmer. "I probably shouldn't have kissed you like that. It was ... mean, I guess. I didn't know what you were like, then. Running through the fire ... I mean, yeah, it hurt me, too. I had to cut my boots all to pieces to get my feet out, and Hadrian had to heal me in stages. But it only took half an hour. You've been here, what, three days?"

He nodded.

"Point is," she said, "I've been a complete jerk to you, and I'm really ashamed. Like, I'm sorry, but I'm more than sorry. I want to make up to you for treating you like a ... a thing." She stroked his head and the panel of his cheekbone. "What can I do? Can I distract you from the pain, somehow?"

Grant considered. "Would you read aloud to me? I've been working my way through Charles Dickens. I was preparing to start_ Great Expectations_."

Nell held out a hand and her ghost transmatted her tablet into her hand. "Let me grab it from the archives. I don't read a lot."

Thus it was that when the doctors arrived a few hours later to resume work on Grant's legs, they found an unexpected visitor in the room. Nell sat on the bed beside Grant, leaning comfortably against the wall, reading aloud from her tablet. Grant lay beside her, hands folded on his chest, gazing at her and listening.

They shooed Nell away during surgery, but they couldn't keep her out. At first they tried, but Grant begged for her to be allowed to return. Finally they assigned her a special pass so she could come and go as she pleased.

Nell came every day for the two weeks Grant was in the hospital. She read until she was hoarse, had her ghost mend her throat, and read some more. The story immersed them both and helped Grant forget the ever-present pain. And even that began to fade as they rebuilt his legs and closed up the insides.

Nell wasn't Grant's only visitor. Jayesh came, too, with his guitar. He'd sit in a chair and play simple chord progressions as they talked, him and Nell and Grant.

"What happened to Shin Malphur?" Nell asked. "Did you kill him?"

"He escaped," Jayesh said, his music taking on a minor key. "He was smart enough not to fry himself. But Traveler's Light, the man is strong. I've never seen anyone fight like that."

"What about you?" Grant said. "You made a fire tornado."

Jayesh shrugged. "Praxic warlocks do that sort of thing for training. Some of them do crazier things, like capture meteors or harness volcanoes."

"Are you a Praxic warlock?" Nell asked.

"No," Jayesh said with a grin. "I serve the Vanguard. And the Traveler. But speaking of the Praxic Order." He silenced his guitar with a hand on the strings. "Cidrex is mostly well after just a few weeks. He sent me an apology letter, since he can't leave yet. He tries to describe the way the bones felt, then he apologizes all over the place."

"Did you write back?" Nell asked.

Jayesh nodded. "I told him that I accept his apology and to not worry about it. I saw that madness in his eyes. He was not in control. And hey, it's a good thing he makes lousy Devourer Bullets."

They chuckled.

Jayesh went on, "Liran and Nessa are already out of rehab. They keep asking me when Nell will be ready for Gambit again."

Nell looked at Grant from her perch beside him on the bed. "Gambit won't be the same without the number two invader."

He smiled up at her.

Nell turned to Jayesh. "I'll play once Grant is out of the hospital. But probably not so much, now." She lowered her voice. "Malphur said I was turning bad, like the Warlords. Just because I don't stick by anybody but my ghost. So ... I'm trying to change that. I'm going to try to work for the Vanguard more. I looked up the Warlords, and I don't want to be like that. Those guys were insanely evil."

Jayesh nodded approvingly. "Malphur does have a way of making people examine their priorities." He frowned at the floor, as if thinking of something else. "Grant, have you had any contact with Donovan Moorehead?"

"No," Grant replied. "But we usually only saw one another during Gambit games."

Jayesh cleared his throat and scanned the hospital room for cameras. Finding none, he said in a low voice, "Keep this to yourselves, all right? Donovan and a man named Tanner were building and selling weapons of sorrow. The Praxic Order raided their shop in the City the day after we arrived home."

Nell and Grant stared at him. "Did they catch them?" Nell asked.

Jayesh shook his head. "The shop was there. The tools and materials and so forth. I heard they impounded four hundred pounds of Hive bone. But there's been no sign of Donovan or Tanner. It's like they disappeared. Their ships are still in the hangers."

There was a tense silence. Nell and Grant exchanged uneasy glances.

Grant said, "Do you think Shin Malphur got them?"

Jayesh shrugged. "We may never know, unless their bodies are found. Tanner was a guardian who had lost his ghost. He was Dredgen Fate. A real Shadow of Yor."

The little group processed this. Grant shook his head. "Donovan ... why?"

"Greed, I guess," Jayesh said. "They kept the Hive bone stuff away from me, but I saw how much glimmer they were making. And you know, I met them here, in the hospital. They were torn up and getting healing, especially Tanner. I wonder now if that was from an encounter with Shin Malphur."

"Or a Hive Knight who didn't want to be a gun," Nell said. "That is so gross, making weapons out of alien parts. Who does that? Aliens are people. Kind of. Hive barely qualify."

"They were people once," Jayesh said, shaking his head.

He played a melody and hummed along with it. Nell stroked Grant's face as they listened. Jayesh's music had a different quality to it, a richness it had lacked. Even though he was a beginner, his music conveyed such deep joy, it was a delight to listen to. Nell's own Light stirred in response.

"Jay," she said when he finished, "what song was that?"

"A little thing my friend Charles is teaching me," Jayesh replied. "Why?"

Nell held out one hand. Flickers of Solar Light rippled down her arm and formed the outline of her golden gun. "That's not me. That's your music."

Jayesh studied her fire and played a few more chords. Nell's fire leaped in time with the music.

"It's affecting me, too," Grant said. He lifted a hand that glowed faintly with Arc Light.

"Maybe there's something to it," Jayesh said wonderingly. "You know that Gambit match when I sang to my team? And we won?"

"Sunsingers are crazy powerful," Nell said with a grin. "Why are you the only one?"

"They say the Light changed when the Traveler awakened," Jayesh replied. "I'm only a Sunsinger because the Traveler had to remake me after Riven ate my Dawnblade." He could almost speak the words without anguish, now.

He changed finger positions. "You know, I wonder." He picked out a different melody, halting, repeating, making mistakes. After a while, he figured out how to play the song in his head - a crooning, rippling love song. He tapped a foot and a healing rift opened on the floor, Light flowing into everyone in the room.

Grant's pain eased at once. He relaxed and shut his eyes.

Jayesh kept playing, maintaining the healing rift effortlessly. "I think the music is acting as a conduit for the Light. Any power will be maintained as long as I play."

Nell laughed. "Imagine if Shaxx let you play over the loudspeaker for Crucible matches. Both teams would go mad with power."

Jayesh grinned. "Now there's a thought."

* * *

When Grant was finally released from the hospital, his lower legs were very stiff, the joints refusing to bend. He had trouble walking, at first.

"The doctors recommend jogging," Sentry suggested, as Grant slowly made his way along the Tower walk.

"Jogging?" he said, taking one step at a time. "I'd fall on my face." He reached a low wall around the outside of an atrium with trees and plants inside. He sat on this, working his knee and ankle joints, and watched people putting up decorations for the Solstice celebration. Plenty of white and gold banners.

Sentry played a healing beam across her guardian's legs. "I'm sorry I can't fix them," she said. "They're technically healed. It's just that all your new tendons are stiff until you work them a bit."

Grant nodded. "I hate to ask for a cane, but I may need one."

As he sat there, Nell appeared, looking very young and human in a t-shirt and shorts. She spotted Grant and approached him, grinning. "Hey there, hotshot. Out walking around by yourself?"

"You might say so," Grant replied. "What're you up to?"

"Looking for you," she replied. "The doctors said that you needed some physical therapy, and I figured it'd be more fun with a friend along." She took his hand and tugged him to his feet. "Show me what you got, big guy."

He gave her a sidelong glance. "Are you flirting with me?"

She laughed and flipped her hair over one shoulder. "Flirting? Me? Never. Now, show me how you walk."

Grant took a few steps, showing how his knees and ankles had trouble flexing. Nell watched with a look of keen concentration. She offered him her shoulder to lean on. "Let's go for a stroll, then."

Shuffling along with a companion was far better than being alone. They walked around and looked at the decorations, and discussed the various activities planned for that year's festivities. When Grant's joints began to ache, they sat and rested. Nell was attentive and patient, keeping up a never-ending stream of chatter to him and their ghosts.

After an hour or so, Grant began to move easier, the tension in his legs lessening. He and Nell strolled out on the wall, where it was less crowded.

They passed by Cal and Jayesh, who were sitting in the remains of a guard tower, talking. Cal was smoking his pipe, his huge frame leaning against a broken girder. Jayesh sat nearby, balancing Kari's sword with one finger on the pommel, the tip resting on the floor.

"Glad to see those two getting along," Jayesh remarked, nodding to Nell and Grant. "For a while, I was scared she was going to murder him."

Cal nodded. "From what their reports said, it was touch and go for a while." He breathed a cloud of smoke into the breeze. "So, your Light is restored. You resurrected yourself?"

"Yes," Jayesh replied, spinning the sword like a top. "I had to do a ghost's job and heal my body, first. It was so strange."

"Being dead is strange," Cal said. "I resurrected myself a few times when I was a Sunsinger."

Jayesh nodded. "I don't like it. Being a spirit is like being unclothed. And there's things out there, watching you. Nine of them."

"Oh, you sensed the Nine?" Cal said, glancing at him. "Did they speak to you?"

"Only one did. The one connected to the sun, I think. That was enough for me."

Cal nodded. "Be glad it was only that one. It's benevolent enough, as such beings go. But the Nine don't understand life as we know it. They seize you, take your will and your body, peel you apart in layers. Happened to a very nice Titan I knew. Stay far away from them."

Jayesh shuddered. "I have no intention of seeking them out. Once was enough."

They watched Nell and Grant in the distance as they sat on the wall's parapet to rest. Grant pulled Nell close. She lifted her face to his, twining her arms around his neck.

Cal chuckled. "Got the hots for each other now, do they?"

Jayesh looked, then hastily returned his gaze to the sword. "I think they always did. It's why they played Gambit so hard."

"Nice to see an Exo with a nice girl like her," Cal said. "They don't get much love, generally. Too metal."

"I'm glad Nell got over her prejudice," Jayesh said. "Maybe a little too quickly."

Cal shifted his position so he wasn't staring straight at the couple. "Any sign of Malphur?"

"I was going to ask you," Jayesh replied. "I don't care to ever see him again. I assume he's not dead?"

"Not dead, no," Cal agreed. "Still out there doing his job, keeping the forces of gray from turning full black. We never did find those weapon smiths, by the way. Might have been Shin. Might have been a rival smith. No new weapons of sorrow have turned up, anyway. That particular snake nest has been cleaned out."

"I've been canceling orders and closing out the online store," Jayesh said. When Cal raised an eyebrow, Jayesh added, "It was my responsibility, right? I'm going to handle it. I just wish it had gone differently. Donovan and Tanner deserved a shot at rehab, at least."

Cal nodded. "Turning weapons of sorrow into artisan craftwork? That takes skill. Shame they put those skills to such use."

The two gazed across the Last City to the Traveler in the distance for a while. Nell and Grant got up and walked back into the Tower, Grant moving slowly again.

"If you ever want to join the Praxic Order," Cal said, "I'd fast-track your application."

Jayesh shook his head. "No thanks. They're doing a good thing, but ... their methods are too rigid for me. I'd ask too many questions and get exiled."

Cal grinned. "That is a concern. Aunor doesn't exile members of the order. They just find themselves permanently stationed on Europa."

Jayesh grinned, too. "That's what I thought."

"Just saying," Cal went on. "If you ever want a pay raise and an outlet for those Sunsinger powers of yours ..."

Jayesh gazed into the sky, at the distant moon setting beyond the Traveler's disc. He lifted the sword and laid it across his knees, his fingers caressing the smooth blade. "No thanks. I'll need all my powers to serve the Vanguard."

* * *

The end


End file.
